Hartmann Schedel, Registrum huius operis libri cronicarum cu[m] figuris et ymagi[ni]bus ab inicio mu[n]di, Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister,1493, fol. CCLXIIII recto, woodcut, coloured, leaf height 45 cm, Inc.0.A.7.2[888].

This Book of chronicles, commonly called the Nuremberg chronicle was a richly illustrated book containing over 1800 illustrations using 652 woodblocks. Unusually, documentation concerning its production has survived, , including contracts with artists and printers, as well as the original design and layout. Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff were commissioned to make the illustrations. As the period of producing the book coincides with Dürer’s apprenticeship to Wolgemut, scholars believe that some of the woodcuts were executed by him.

The book chronicled the history of the world following the Christian periodization of Six Ages. The history was narrated in terms of eminent people and foundation of cities, with the city of Nuremberg taking centre stage in the sixth age. This woodcut appears in the section for the Seventh Age – the coming of the Antichrist, end of the world and the day of Last Judgment – that still lay in the future. It is an ‘image of death’, with skeletons and cadavers dancing around a grave. The text below the image is an extract from Francesco Petrarca’s (1304-1374) verse letter to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna on the inevitability of death. To view the whole book, click the Digital Library link below.