Leaf from Nuremberg Chronicle (aka Liber Chronicarum) - Folio CXCVIII

[Nuremberg]: [Anton Koberger], 1493. Very Good. [Nuremberg]: [Anton Koberger], [1493]. Disbound. Incunable leaf (CXCVIII). Folio (45x32cm). Single column text in Latin (66 lines on verso and 65 recto, plus headlines); rubricated fills and pen flourishes; 8 woodcuts to verso and 5 recto. Paper tape reinforcement to recto at head and tail of gutter edge with a short, adjacent closed tear at tail. Faint paper scars to top margin on recto from prior mounting. Shallow dampstain along top edge with some fingerprinting and smudging in margins, faint and flattened crease remnant across bottom corner, but crisp and clean overall.

Disbound leaf from Schedel's landmark world history. This leaf tells of "Doctor Mellifluus" Bernard of Clairvaux, the convert Petrus Alphonsi, Pope Honorius II, the conflict between Pope Innocent II and William II, Duke of Apulia, and more, but is most notable for its conjoined dog-boy (sometimes wolf-boy) woodcut, depictions of clouds raining fire, stars, and blood, and the description of various omens and portents during the year 1128:

"At this time, being the Year of the Lord 1128, a number of people in the West were so consumed by holy fire that their limbs became as black as coals... On the Ides of June in this year it rained blood in various parts of Italy. A sow in the parish of Ligones (Langres), according to the testimony of Vincent of Gaul, bore a little pig with a human face. And in the same year a four-footed chicken was hatched. Fiery rays appeared in the heavens and spread throughout the sky. Stars fell to the earth, and when water was poured on them they gave a loud sound. It was a very harsh winter, followed by a great famine; and many people and much cattle died; and the birds strangled themselves. In Italy occurred an earthquake, which lasted forty days, and overthrew the villages all around. The moon was darkened at night, and it appeared as red as blood. A woman bore a monster, double-bodied, having a human face in front, and the face of a dog in back" [Kosta Hadavas, trans.].

Ref:

Hadavas, Kosta. First English Edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle. Online at University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries.