Exceptionally rare colored example of the first edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, the most extensively illustrated book of the 15th century. Imperial folio, bound in full 17th-century pigskin over bevelled wooden boards with elaborate blind tooling and scrolling to the spine and panels, brass cornerpieces, 2 fore-edge clasps, 325 leaves (of 328, without blank 55/6 and 61/5-6; fos. 9/3.4, 25/1, 53/6, 54/5 and possibly others supplied from another copy), quire 55 bound at end, fos. CCLVIIII-CCLXI blank except for printed headlines. 1809 woodcut illustrations printed from 645 blocks (S.C. Cockerell’s count, some German woodcuts of the fifteenth century, 1897, pp.35-6), by Michael Wolgemut, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their workshop, including Albrecht Durer, lombards, woodcuts coloured by a near-contemporary hand, 14-line initial opening text in interlocking red and blue with purple penwork decoration, other initial spaces left blank, red capital strokes. In near fine condition. (Quires 4 and 5 rehinged, some leaves remargined at hinge and upper or lower margin with some loss [primarily of headline, replaced in pen-and-ink], section of Europe map expertly repaired in facsimile, some light browning, minor repairs). Provenance: annotated throughout in Arabic. The first edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in both Latin and German, is estimated to have had between 1,400 and 1,500 Latin copies and 700 to 1,000 German copies. Only about 400 Latin and 300 German copies are known to have survived into the 21st century. Colored copies of the first edition are exceptionally rare.
