Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies present Bettina Wagner on "The Nuremberg Humanist Hartmann Schedel and his Books: A Doctor, Chronicler, and Collector at the Transition from Manuscript to Print."

Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514) is best known today as the compiler of the Nuremberg Chronicle published in 1493 as a joint venture of the city’s elite. The book would not have been possible without the enormous library which the city doctor had amassed since his student days in Leipzig and Padua. Schedel’s collection, which still survives in large parts in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, is the largest private library in Germany from the late Middle Ages. Hundreds of items, including his autograph library catalogue, give an insight into his interests at the time of transition from manuscript to print.

Bettina Wagner is Director of the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg in Germany. She has a long history of working with incunabula and manuscripts, including at Oxford’s Bodleian Library and at the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Reception to follow. Registration is encouraged but not required.

Image: Sexta etas mundi/Folium C, Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). CE57 .S3 1493. Gleeson Library, University of San Francisco.