1493 Hartman Schedel Map of the World

One of the most distinctive early maps, this is the incunable map of the world accompanying Hartman Schedel's 1493 Liber Cronicarum or the 'Nuremberg Chronicle'. It is one of the few 15th-century printed maps available to the collector, but even among the earliest printed world maps, it is unique in its presentation and content. Published while Columbus sailed, this map captures the European world at the dawn of the Age of Discovery, just 40 years after the printing press.

Ancient Topology, Updated

The map is not an attempt to show the entire globe but rather a section of it. Schedel's map uses Claudius Ptolemy's roughly trapezoidal projection to show the known inhabited world, the Oikoumene. The Indian Ocean is presented as an inland sea, with land extending from Africa towards the east, bending north to connect with China beyond the Malay Peninsula, here termed India Ex. Gangem (India beyond the Ganges). Overall, this geography is reflective of a view of the world prior to the 1488 Portuguese rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. However, both the eastward curve of the African Atlantic coast and the inclusion of an Atlantic island south of the Ptolemaic 'Fortunate Islands' indicate an awareness of the 15th-century Portuguese efforts to explore the African coast that would eventually contradict the map's Ptolemaic depiction of the Indian Ocean.

Modern Toponymy

While rooted fundamentally in 2nd-century geographical ideas, Schedel's map represents one of the first attempts to present the modern world in its use of contemporaneous European place names. For example, England, Ireland, and Scotland are named, as are Hungary, Poland, and Prussia. The placenames applied to Africa and Asia remain Ptolemaic as European exploration had yet to illuminate those corners the world.

A Medieval Map of the World

While the map has a toe in the Age of Discovery, the decorative elements seat it squarely in the late medieval period. The projection's borders are populated by a dozen wind-heads, then the conventional means of describing direction. Outside this border, the map is presided over by the three sons of Noah: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. This is in keeping with the religious aspect of the Chronicle as a form. As with other manuscript and printed chronicles, Schedel's Liber Cronicarum was a narrative of the history of the world from its Biblical beginnings to its prophesied end.

A Monster-Filled World

Everybody in the 15th century knew that the world was filled with monsters, a belief supported by the classical histories of Herodotus, Ctesias, Pliny the Elder, and Julius Solinus. The Liber Cronicarum drew on these classical sources as well as Biblical ones, and 21 of the semi-human monsters thought to inhabit the remote parts of the world are depicted to the left of the map and on the verso (this is a map which rewards double-sided framing!)

Publication History and Census

This woodcut map was made for inclusion in the Schedel's 1493 Liber Cronicarum, which appeared both in a Latin and a German edition (ours is the former.) The Cronicarum was the most abundantly illustrated work of its generation and thus printed in large runs. Today, the book and its woodcuts are, compared to other 15th-century works, somewhat acquirable. Schedel's Liber Cronicarum is well represented in institutional collections both in Latin and in German, the separate map somewhat less so. It appears on the market from time to time.