Liber Chronicarum. Nuremberg Chronicle. Single Leaf. Folio CCLXX. [Wallachia City View, Mentions the Dragulari , aka Dracul and Vlad Tepes Army]. Hand Colored. by Schedel, Hartmann - 1493.

Nuremberg:: Anton Koberger,, 1493.. Contemporary hand colored leaf, rubricated letters on verso, very minor edge wear, no affect, overall a beautiful leaf, highly sought after not only for the city view, but especially the text content. Recto text is of Matthias and King Ladislaus, sons of Hunyadi, thievery and war, Hungarians and Germans, Sabinians and Wallachia. Verso is the history of Wallachia and a large woodcut of the an imaginary city view. Stated to be at beginning of Sienenburgen and extending to the Euxine Sea, it is south of the Danube and to the north are the Russians - and across the river Tyrus are the nomadic Scythians, called the Tartars. A brief history of Wallachia and also the mention of its modern times with two revolts, one by the Dacians, the other by the Dragulari (the family of Vlad Dracul). The City view is contemporary hand-colored.. Single leaf. . “The ruling dynasty of Wallachia was founded by Basarab I and was henceforth known as the House of Basarab. Succession to the Wallachian throne, however, was not guided by the right of the firstborn to inherit an entire estate, as in Western European tradition; instead, the boyars retained the right to select which Basarab voivode, or prince, they saw fit for accession to the throne... BY the end of the fourteenth century, the House of Basarab had split in two; the descendants of the voivode Danesti constituting one line, while the progency of the voivode Mircea the Elder comprised the other (the House of Draculesti - henceforth ‘Dracul or ‘Dravula’). Even while the country’s independence was undre threat from neighboring powers, a struggle for power between the two clans arose. Vlad II, son of Mircea the Elder, was exiled to Transylvania, but he in turn convinced Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of Hungary, to aid his return to the throna. IN 1436, already bearing the sobriquet Dracul, Vlad II won back the throne after murdering his rival of the Danesti lienage. His son, Vlad III, who was later dubbed Tepes (or the Impaler), ruld Wallachia in three separate periods: for a short spell in 1448 with Turkish aid, then backed as voivode by Hungary between 1456 and 1462, and finally again gaining the throne with Hungarian help in 1475. It was Vlad III who was later fashioned by rumor and legend into the bloodsucking vampire, Count Dracula.” [- Istvan Pivarcsi, Just a Bite, 2012]. The Nuremberg Chronicle is the most extensively illustrated book, and one of the most important, of the 15th century. The text is a universal history of the Christian world from the beginning of time to the 1490’s. Written in Latin by physician and humanist, Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) on commission from Nuremberg merchants Sebald Schreye (1446-1520) and Sebastian Kammermeister (1446-1503). The Chronicle was printed by Nuremberg printer Anton Koberger (c.1440-1513), owner of the largest 15th-century German printing house. The Latin edition was printed in Koberger’s shop between May 1492 and October 1493. In the meantime, a German translation was commissioned to George Alt (c.1450-1510), a scribe at the Nuremberg treasury, and the German edition was printed alongside the Latin one between January and December 1493. The Chronicle was illustrated by German artists Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, with the assistance of studio apprentices, including a young Albrecht Durer.