Hartmann Schedel (1440 - 1514)
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In the story of printing Nuremberg plays a major part and soon became one of the most important and influential publishing centres. Although not founded until soon after the year 1000, the city's position at the meeting point of North-South and East-West trade routes in Central Europe, and its designation in the middle of the thirteenth century as an Imperial Free City, led to rapid growth in wealth and status.
By the fifteenth century it had become one of the great cultural centres of Europe, its scholars and craftsmen exercising powerful influence throughout the Continent, not only on the development of cartography but on scientific thought in general. Many famous scholars worked or lived there including Regiomontanus (Johann Muller), the astronomer; Johann Sch6ner, astronomer and globe maker; Hartmann Schedel, cosmographer and entrepreneur; Anton Koberger, master printer; Martin Behaim, cosmographer and globe maker; and Ehrhard Etzlaub, an instrument maker who produced a road map of Central Europe, the earliest printed map of its type. And, most important of all, Albrecht Durer who was born there in 1471.