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Dramatic incunable woodcut image of the final battle between good and evil, from the Latin edition of Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle.
In the sky, the image shows Armageddon, the apocalyptic battle at the end of times between good and evil. God is shown attacking and defeating the Antichrist, with the Archangel Michael is wielding a sword in battle with two dragons.
Below, the Antichrist (far left) is deceptively preaching to the people whilst being controlled by the devil. On the right, two men at a pulpit give a ceremony to a second group of people.
The woodblocks were cut by Michael Wolgemut and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff . At the time, Albrecht Dürer was serving an apprenticeship in Wohlgemut's (1486-1490) an was almost certainly involved in this work. Durer's Apocalypse is reminiscent of these images.
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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