The Sunderland Collection

 is perhaps the best documented of any book printed in the fifteenth century, owing to the survival of the contract between the printer Anton Koberger (c.1445–1513) and his financial partners Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, the contract between Koberger and the artists, and the surviving manuscript exemplars. 

 (1471–1528), godson of Koberger, was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut from 1486–1489, during the period Wolgemut's shop was busy creating the woodcuts for this volume.

Documents in the Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg reveal that 

 was not the sole author. A surviving Latin manuscript template shows the handwriting of seven contributors, with Schedel supplying the largest portion. As the '

' draws on a wide variety of sources, in some cases adapted verbatim, it is perhaps more appropriate to refer to Schedel and his co-writers as compilers rather than authors. 

' contains two double-sided maps: a Ptolemaic world map, and a map of Europe. The work was published only a year after Columbus’s first voyage in 1492, and thus 'America' is not yet shown on the world map. On one of the opening pages is a passage relating to the "Portuguese voyage of 'discovery' along the coast of Africa in 1483 [1484], under the direction of Diego Cam and Martin Behaim of Nuremberg", which has been used as a basis for the unwarranted theory that the expedition reached America.

Dated 12 July 1493.

This magnificent world chronicle was produced in Nuremberg by Hartmann Schedel, and is thus often referred to as the 'Nuremberg Chronicle'. It is a history of the known world from Creation to the date of publishing, presented from a European perspective and with particular emphasis on Germany. With an astounding 1,809 woodcuts, the publication is highlighted by thirty-one double-page city views, some of which represent the first authentic depiction of a city panorama.

The work features two double-sided maps of the world and Europe, as well as curious profiles of marvellous creatures believed to inhabit the ends of the Earth. Created in the workshop of Michael Wolgemut, the woodcuts may have been designed in part by a young Albrecht Dürer who was completing his apprenticeship at the time in Wolgemut’s studio.

Schedel’s world chronicle has appeared under various names but is generally referred to as the 'Nuremberg Chronicle' in English and the 'Schedelsche Weltchronik' in German. Though he does give special focus to Nuremberg and German history - a subject he felt was neglected in contemporary chronicles - the 'Nuremberg Chronicle' is in fact a history of the world modelled after a longstanding medieval genre. Schedel’s work, however, would far surpass previous chronicles with its ambitious, lavish decoration. The work contains an astounding 1,809 woodcut illustrations from the workshop of Michael Wolgemut (1434-1519). Only 645 printing blocks were used, however, and a number of portraits, city views, diagrams and embellishments, are repeated several times.

Stretching from the dawn of Creation to the date of publication, the ‘Nuremberg Chronicle’ interweaves world events with digressions about natural catastrophes, celestial phenomena, wars, reports of the founding of cities, and other local matters. It is structured into Six Ages of Man following the Biblical analogy to the six days of Creation, with a brief seventh age that details the coming of the Antichrist and the Last Judgement as foretold in the Book of Revelations. Events occurring in other parts of the world are inserted parallel to the Biblical stories. Following this, somewhat unsystematically, are descriptions of towns and cities with particular emphasis on the most important cities of Germany and the Western world. In many cases, the Chronicle features the first known illustrations of the cities in question, along with the story of their foundation, the etymology of their names, and a painstaking list of facts about cultural life, economy, and trades flourishing there in the period around 1490.

The publication of the Nuremberg Chronicle is perhaps the best documented of any book printed in the fifteenth century, owning to the survival of contracts between some of the artists, printers, and financiers involved in its creation.

Ptolemaic world map

God Enthroned/God's heavenly chorus

The third and fourth days of creation

The fifth and sixth days of creation

The Universe

Creation of Eve/ Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

The First Family

Family tree of Adam

Noah's Ark

Noah's drunkeness/ Family Tree

City of Jerusalem

City of Nineveh

Linage of Laban/ Sodom & Gomorrha

Sacrifice of Isaac/ City of Trier in Germany

City of Damascus 

Illustration of the City and Island of Rhodes/ Joseph and Potiphar's Wife

Lacedaemonia/ Job

Moses and the Burning Bush/ Balaam

Moses receiving the 10 Commandments/ Crossing of the Red Sea/ Idol of the Golden Calf 

Tablets of the laws/ Lineage of Christ/ City of Tiberias

The Sibyls/ The City of Troy

City of Paris

City of Mainz/ Eurystheus and Alete/ Lineage of Christ continued

Lineage of the judges: Samson, Eli, Samuel, Elkanah, Peninnah, and Hannah/ City of Naples

City of Venice

City of Padua

City of Pisa/ England

The Judgement of Solomon/ Solomon's Temple

Hebrew Prophets/ City of Jericho/ Ascension of Elijah

City of Treviso/ Lineage of Christ continued

City of Rome

Lineage of Christ conitnued/ 7 sages of Greece/ City of Marseilles

Babylonian Kings/ City of Byzantium/ The capturing of Zedekiah

Destruction of Jerusalem

City of Toulouse/ City of Insubres

The Maccabees/ City of Mantua

City of Florence

City of Cologne

City of Augsburg

City of Regensburg

City of Vienna

City of Nuremberg

Martyrdom of James the Lesser/ Martyrdom of Peter/ Martyrdom of Paul/ Seneca/ Marytrdom of Apostle Philip

Martyrdom of Apostle Simon/ Martyrdom of Apostle Matthias/ St Luke/ Mary Magdelene

Bishops of Athens/ City of Tibur

City of Constantinople

City of Buda

City of Strausbourg

City of Salzburg

City of Erfurt

City of Würtzburg

City of Bamberg

City of Magdeburg

The Electors of the Holy Roman Empire

Herealdry of the German Electoral College

City of Ulm

City of Passau

City of Prague

City of Breslau

City of Constance

City of Basel

Death and the End of Things

The Last Judgement and the End of the World

God's reward above, end of the World below

Events in Germany under Emperor Frederick III

Wallachia

Thrace

The Turks

The Seige of Constantinople

Macedonia

Austria

Lithuania

Hesse/ Franconia 

France

Spain/ Portugal

Map of Central Europe

Europe region of Samartia/ Poland 

Krakow 

Lübeck

Neisse

A pristine first edition of Schedel's famous world chronicle, with exceptional contemporary hand-colouring throughout, heightened in gold, in an early sixteenth-century binding with a prestigious and sustained provenance.

The Book of Chronicles 

Liber Chronicarum 

Hartmann Schedel's 'Nuremberg Chronicle' 

A Record of this Work, the Book of Chronicles, with Figures and Pictures from the Beginning of the World

Registrum Huius Operis Libri Chonicarum cum Figuris et Ymagibus ab Inicio Mundi