Ransom Center’s Nuremberg Chronicle on view at the Blanton Museum

A copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle from the Ransom Center’s collections is on view at The University of Texas at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art as part of the exhibition Imperial Augsburg: Renaissance Prints and Drawings, 1475–1540.

 

The exhibition, organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington with loans from private and public collections, emphasizes the rich and varied works on paper produced in Renaissance Augsburg. “One of the oldest cities in Germany, Augsburg was founded as a Roman military fortress in 15 BCE,” said Catherine Zinser, the Blanton’s curator of exhibitions. “During the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519), Augsburg hosted the Imperial Council and became the center from which the emperor organized all of his print and armor commissions. The combined influences of this important seat of government and Augsburg’s location at the crossroads of international trade manifested a diverse artistic community and a thriving art market.”

 

The Nuremberg Chronicle, an illustrated world history spanning from the biblical Creation of the world to its publication in 1493, depicts Augsburg as a walled city with many churches. One of Nuremberg’s leading artists, Michel Wolgmut, and his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, were commissioned to illustrate the publication, which would become the largest book project of its kind in the late fifteenth century. Together, with a workshop of artisans, including a young Albrecht Dürer, Wolgmut and Pleydenwurff created more than 1,800 illustrations from 645 wood blocks. The Nuremberg Chronicle highlights important Western cities, and Augsburg’s prominent, two-page spread speaks to the city’s position as a major center for trade, manufacturing, and publishing.

 

The Ransom Center holds more copies of the Nuremberg Chronicle–one of the earliest printed books and the first with an existing design–than any other library in the country. The Nuremberg Chronicle along with other prints, drawings, and artifacts are on view at the Blanton Museum through January 5.