This very rare map of the world is based on Schedel’s map bound in the Nuremberg Chronicle. It has been substantially reduced and Latin text has been added below.

When Hartmann Schedel presented his “Nuremberg Chronicle” to the general public in 1493, it caused a sensation. Very successful at its launch, to this day it is perceived as one of the most important books ever printed. This success quickly brought emulators though due to its vast scope and size, none of them were capable of investing so much time and resources on their version of a folio based on Schedel’s work. Instead, editions of the work were produced which were much reduced in size, cutting down production costs dramatically. Simultaneously, the asking price of the work was much less than Schedel’s larger version. Needless to say, it is unlikely that any of these emulators asked Schedel’s permission to re-issue his work.

Of the two maps present in the Nuremberg Chronicle, the most celebrated is the map of the world. Usually credited to Hieronymus Munzer, the source for the map has been traced to a 1482 edition of the classical geographer Pomponius Mela’s “Cosmographia Geographia” published in Venice by Erhard Rathold. Although Munzer’s map depicts many of the classic Ptolemaic tropes present on medieval maps, particularly the land locking of the Indian Ocean, it is also notable for an early depiction of Scandinavia, the Orkneys and a much longer West African coastline than usual, a reference to the voyages of early Portuguese explorers under Henry the Navigator. There is also a large unnamed island shown off the coast of West Africa which is believed to be a reference to the discovery of the Cape Verde Islands.

The reduced map offered here was issued by Johann Schonsperger in Augsburg in 1497. There were other editions of the work in this size in 1496 and 1500, both in German and Latin. The typographical layout of the text below the map changes according to edition. Comparison between the larger and smaller maps shows that, probably due to size constraints, the smaller map has omitted some of the detail in the north, including the “island” of Sweden, Scotland and the Orkneys. Bar the exception above, it is faithfully based on its larger contemporary.

Although there are three known editions of this reduced map, their level of success is unknown. However, today all editions of the reduced maps are relatively far scarcer than their folio “parent”.

This example bears Latin text in Gothic script below the map. Image of reverse available on request. [WLD4920]