Hartmann Schedel / Wohlgemut / Pleydenwurff / Durer - The...

This original sheet is an incunable from 1493, originating from the Liber Chronicarum, also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, one of the most famous and monumental works in the early history of printing. The text was written by the German humanist Hartmann Schedel, printed by the renowned publisher Anton Koberger in Nuremberg, and illustrated with woodcuts from the workshop of Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. The page is part of the section titled “Sexta etas mundi,” dedicated to the Christian era. The text masterfully intertwines the biographies of the highest doctrinal authorities of Catholicism with the complex military campaigns of the Crusades in the Holy Land and the birth of the great monastic orders aimed at reordering spirituality and the Western Church. The front of the sheet (which bears the woodcut numbering CXCV in the upper right) depicts a crucial moment of the First Crusade, focusing on the military labors of the siege and conquest of the city of Antioch by the Christian armies led by Bohemond and Godfrey of Bouillon. The text opens by celebrating the extraordinary finding of the Holy Lance (Lancea Domini), the relic with which Christ’s side was pierced, discovered in the Church of Saint Andrew following a spiritual revelation to a cleric. The chronicle tells how this sign of divine protection revived the hope of soldiers exhausted by hunger, guiding them to victory against the imposing ranks of the Saracens. The visual composition of the front is enhanced by a striking woodcut that depicts the tip of the Holy Lance enclosed within a geometric frame. Beneath the relic unfolds the succession of the scholars and prelates of the era, opened by the portrait of the pious bishop and scholar Ildeberto of Le Mans (Hildebertus episcopus), followed by the memory of Saint Maurilius, the holiness of life of the Archbishop of Rouen (Sanctus quoque Maurilius). Turning the page, the back shifts attention to the great monastic institutions and the continuation of the chronicles in the East, under the woodcut caption Ordo Cisterciensium. The text describes in detail the founding of the Cistercian Order in 1098 at Cîteaux by the religious Rob­ert of Molesme, aided by his successors Alberic and Stephen Harding, aimed at establishing a strict rule of poverty and spiritual discipline. The right-hand column hosts vertical portraits of the three founding fathers of the order, solemnly depicted in monastic robes: Abbot Robert (Robertus abbas), Abbot Alberic (Albericus abbas), and Abbot Stephan (Stephanus abbas), while the central part of the page features a splendid woodcut illustrating the primitive core of the monastery and the Cistercian church with the monks gathered in prayer. The lower part of the page continues the military chronicle describing the Christian dukes’ march toward Jerusalem and the subsequent sieges of the coastal fortresses of Palestine, offering scholars a universal guide to understanding the shifts of peoples through the centuries. Dimensions 42 x 30 cm Will be shipped by courier

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