Hartmann Schedel is one of the prominent medieval map makers in the world. He has a significant position in the world history of cartography. Hartmann Schedel was actually a German humanist, physician and historian. He is well known as one of the very first cartographers who put to use the printing press.
Hartmann Schedel was born in the year 1440. He came to live in Nuremberg in the year 1484. His Nuremberg Chronicle was published in the year 1493 in Nuremberg. Hartmann became famous in the world of maps for his Nuremberg Chronicle.
The first edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle was published in Latin; later, a German edition was printed in the same year. The Nuremberg Chronicle by Schedel is a pictorial representation of the world from the time of creation till the 1490s. This chronicle must have been very popular in its time as around 400 German copies and 800 Latin copies of the Nuremberg Chronicle have been discovered till date.
The chronicle includes more than 1800 woodcuts. These include a number of city maps, a map depicting central and northern Europe and a world map. Quite a few maps included in the Nuremberg Chronicle depicted countries and cities for the first time ever in the world. He breathed his last in the year 1514 which created a void in the world of cartography.