Hartmann Schedel's Chronicle of the World, widely known as The Nuremberg Chronicle, after the German city in which it was created, was a groundbreaking encyclopedic work and, at the time, the most lavishly illustrated book ever printed in Europe. Both a historical reference work and a contemporary survey of urban culture at the end of the 15th century, the Chronicle had a remarkable influence on the cultural, ecclesiastical and intellectual history of the Middle Ages. In over 1,800 superb woodcut illustrations the Chronicle depicted events from the Bible, human monstrosities, portraits of kings, queens, saints and martyrs, and allegorical pictures of miracles, as well as views of a great number of "modern" cities, many of which had never before been documented.