Dřevořezové ilustrace Welmi piekné nowé Kroniky (1519)

A Very Fine New Chronicle (orig. Welmi piekna nowa Kronika), published by the Prague printer Jan Šmerhovský in 1519, is a literal translation of A Very Fine New History (orig. Ein gar schöne newe Histori) by the Nuremberg printer Kaspar Hochfeder, published in 1499 and 1500 in Metz. The Czech edition adopts Hochfeder's cycle of woodcut associative illustrations – rather than literal copies, these are inventive imitations, including several original illustrations. This cycle deviates from the contemporary standard of Czech book printing of the early 16th century not only in its scope, in its unusual iconography recounting the chivalric romance of Florio and Bianzafiore based on motifs from Filocolo by Giovanni Boccaccio, but mainly in the quality of its artistic execution. The article introduces Šmerhovský, his work and the individual illustrations of the Chronicle, as well as Hochfeder and his printing facilities. Attention is also paid to the alleged author of the German illustrations, the Master of the Legend of St Meinrad, who may have trained in Augsburg in the scriptorium and print shop of the Benedictine monastery of Sts Ulrich and Afra. In Nuremberg, the Master then became acquainted with the Wolgemut School and synthesized these two South German regional styles into his own drawing style. Twenty years later, this became the model for Šmerhovský's print, which for the reasons given above we can consider to be a unique item in the field of early Bohemian printing.