Constantinople — Nuremberg Chronicle, folio CCXLIX

About this piece

An original hand-coloured woodcut leaf from the first Latin edition of Hartmann Schedel’s Liber chronicarum, printed by Anton Koberger at Nuremberg in 1493. Constantinople appears on folio CCXLIX as a walled city set between water and hills. Towers and buildings crowd the enclosure, while the open water gives the view a clear foreground.

The city remained a central subject in European accounts of the fifteenth century after its conquest by the Ottomans in 1453. Schedel’s Chronicle gave readers a view through the conventions of a late-medieval printed book, with the skyline and walls condensed into a form that could be read alongside the Latin text.

Turn the leaf over and the scene gives way to three coloured woodcut portraits, including Johannes Capistranus and Franciscus Philelphus. The paper measures 43.5 × 31 cm. There are a few small spots in the blank margin, light edge wear and a crease at the upper corner.

Condition: Good condition, with a few small spots in the white margin.