Cities of Rome and Genoa, from Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber Chronicarum)

Koberger, Albrecht Dürer’s godfather, was one of the premier print publishers in Nuremberg in the late 15th century. Made up of 645 woodblocks, the Chronicle is a history of the world with fantastical and factual elements intertwined, often in the same image. Panoramic views of cities, such as Rome shown here, varied in their accuracy and were often copied or modified from earlier printed urban views. Wide distribution of the Chronicle among the circles of scholars and learned people in Europe ensured that the views became the understood authority on the appearance of these cities, to which many of the readers had never been.