ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 2001.
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES

A review of Hartmann Schedel. Chronicle of the World – 1493 edited and annotated by Stephan Fussel

A4 format, 88 strana.

Lepo očuvana.

This is a beautifully produced facsimile of the German edition (it was apparently published in Latin at the time as well) of what has come to be known as the Nuremberg Chronicle. The book sets out to tell the history of the world through seven ages, though the seventh is best described as the age to come, when we can look forward to the coming of the Antichrist, Armageddon and the Last Judgement. Seems crazy to most of us, but these were all very real prospects for Hartmann Schedel and his contemporaries. Most attention is paid to the sixth age, running from about the birth of Jesus Christ up to the perpetually-changing present.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) is likely to have read this book, that’s the thought that first strikes you. There’s one telling report here, an account of a peasant preacher who decried priestly privilege in a sermon delivered at the village of Niklashausen in 1476 – less than two decades before the book was published. He was burned alive for his outburst, but that small speech was a sort of precursor to the Reformation. Also, at certain points within the Chronicle there are anti-Jewish stories (e.g. an account of the murder of a Christian child at Passover, reported as fact), sentiments and (crucially for the dissemination of this stuff) images and we know (not least from reading chapter 7 of David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism) that Luther was not above expressing such sentiments in his sermons. In this as in certain other respects, the Chronicle is a document that is of its age.

Nirnberška hronika