Secunda Etas Mundi

Article description

Original double page woodcut map published in the Latin text edition of the famous 'Nurnberg Chronicle', printed in Nuremberg, in July 1493. Verso illustrated with small woodcut illustrations. First Latin text edition. The 'Nurnberg Chronicle' was the earliest and most richly illustrated incunabula and description of the world, which was as well illustrated with a small number of authentic double page city views. These woodcuts were mostly cut or designed by Hanns Pleydenwurff and Michael Wolgemut. Also Albrecht Dürer did his apprenticeship in this famous Nuremberg workshop. The world map by Hartmann Schedel is one of the earliest obtainable world maps published and printed in 1493. It was just published a couple of months after the return of Christoph Columbus in March 1493 from his first voyage to the New World, however nothing of his new discoveries were included. The world map is based on Ptolemy and is surrounded by twelve windheads, further the map is supported in three of its corners with figures of the Old Testament (Ham, Shem and Japhet). 'What gives the map its present-day interest and attraction are the panels representing the outlandish creatures and beings that were thought to inhabit the furthermost parts of the earth. There are seven such scenes on the left of the map and a further fourteen on its reverse. Pliny, Pomponius Mela, Solinus and Herodotus' Fables have been the sources for many of these mythological creatures; others were doubtless born of medieval travellers' tales. Among the scenes are a six-armed man, possible based on glimpses of a file of Hindu dancers so aligned that the front figure appears to have multiple arms; a six-fingered man, a centaur, a four-eyed man from a coastal tribe in Ethiopia; a dog headed man from the Simien Mountains, a cyclops, one of the men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders, one of the crook-legged men who live in the desert and slide along instead of walking; a strange hermaphrodite, a man with one giant foot only (stated by Solinus to be used as a parasol but more likely an unfortunate sufferer from elephantisis), a man with a huge underlip (doubtless seen in Africa), a man with a waist-length hanging ears and other frightening and fanciful creatures of a world beyond' (Rodney W. Shirley - Mapping of the World #19).

Rodney W. Shirley, Mapping of the World. #19, Pl. 25;