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Fine representation of Adam's creation. According to the Bible God created all of the land animals on the sixth day of creation.
This is a Christian-Aristotelian view of the cosmos: at the center is the earth surrounded by other three elements of water, air and fire. Beyond it are the seven planetary spheres (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), then the firmament (the dome of fixed stars), the crystalline heaven and Aristotle's primum mobile, the revolving outermost sphere which moves the universe by imparting motion to the other spheres. The four winds grace the corners. The woodcut, then, combines ancient philosophy, a Christian perspective and weather.
On verso woodblock entitled De sanctificatione septime diei: "God blessed the seventh day, and He declared it to be holy." This woodcut shows God resting after creating the world in six days.
Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) was a physician, book collector, and writer whose most famous work, the Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle), included some of the first printed views of many cities in Europe and across the world.
Schedel was born and died in Nuremberg, but he also traveled for his education. From 1456 to 1463 he lived in Leipzig, where he attended the University of Leipzig and earned his MA. From there he went to Padua, where he earned a Doctor of Medicine in 1466. After university, he worked for a time in Nördlingen and then returned to Nuremberg. In 1482 he was elected a member of the Great Council of Nuremberg.
The Chronicle was published in 1493. Besides this major work, one of Schedel’s most enduring legacies is his magnificent manuscript and printed book collection, one of the largest of the fifteenth century. In 1552, Schedel's grandson, Melchior Schedel, sold about 370 manuscripts and 600 printed works from Hartmann Schedel's library to Johann Jakob Fugger. Fugger later sold his library to Duke Albert V of Bavaria in 1571. This library is now mostly preserved in the Bayerische Staasbibliothek in Munich.
Among the surviving portions of Schedel's library are the records for the publication of the Chronicle, including Schedel's contract with Anton Koberger for the publication of the work and the financing of the work by Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, as well as the contracts with Wohlgemut and Pleydenwurff for the original artworks and engravings. The collection also includes original manuscript copies of the work in Latin and German.
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