The illustrations of the Nuremberg Chronicle are online courtesy of Beloit College! Why do you care? Well, produced in the 1480s, “the Chronicle is probably the most sophisticated printed book published before the year 1500 because of its use of different graphic layouts that integrate text and image in more varied ways than anything that had previously been attempted.” The book features illustrations by a teenaged Albrecht Dürer completed while working under apprenticeship to Michael Wohlgemut, and a custom production run of laid paper with distinctive watermarking. The whole affair was printed by the over one hundred unnamed printers, typesetters and assistants employed by Anton Koberger, one of Nuremberg’s, and concequently Europe’s, largest print houses and publishers. Lesson of the day: location, location, location. 1480’s Nuremberg = 2010’s San Jose.
(Folios, history and general information are also available through thanks to the hard work of Beloit and the magic of the world-wide-interwebs.)
A typographic, designological, visulicious extravaganza!