Genealogical Page; published in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel

Michael Wolgemut (German, 1434–1519)

and Wilhelm Playdenwurff (German, 1494)

1493

Medium
woodcut
Classification
Print
Culture
Germany
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, Prints
Credit line
Gift of Lillian Hammer
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed

View at the Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

After Johann Gutenberg's Bible (1453-56), the Nuremberg Chronicle is the most famous 15th-century publication and an early bestseller, documenting history from the creation of the world to the voyages of discovery in the 1490s. The book's large scale (18.11 x 12.59 x 3.5 inches), unprecedented number of illustrations (1,809 woodcuts printed from 645 woodblocks), and great length (over 600 pages) made it the most ambitious printed publication since the invention of movable type just a few decades earlier. Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff illustrated the text and provided complete manuscript layouts, an unusual procedure at the time but nonetheless successful in closely integrating the images and text, producing an extraordinarily cohesive unit.