Thessaly, Macedonia, Achaea, Epirus — and the Regions “Commonly Called Illyricus”. In 1493, just one year after Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas, the German humanist, physician, and historian Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514) published one of the most ambitious and lavishly illustrated books of the early printing age: the Nuremberg Chronicle. This massive world history and cosmography, printed in both Latin and German editions in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger, sought to summarize human history from Creation to the late 15th century, blending biblical narrative, classical antiquity, medieval lore, and contemporary geography.
Among its many geographical descriptions is a short but revealing passage on the ancient lands of the Balkans and Greece. In the German edition, Schedel (or his translator Georg Alt) writes:
“Epirus: Hellas. Thessalien, Mazedonien, Achaia und zwei im Meer gemeiniglich Illyricus”
This is not a precise political map but a humanistic compilation of classical knowledge as understood in late 15th-century Germany. Schedel draws on ancient authorities who sometimes used “Illyricum” or “Illyria” broadly to refer to the Adriatic coastal lands stretching from modern Slovenia and Croatia down through Dalmatia, Montenegro, and into northern Albania and Epirus. The phrase “two [regions] in the sea” likely alludes to the Adriatic islands or the maritime character of parts of Illyria and Epirus.
Transcribed:
“… Vom niederern Mazedonien liegt daselbst inne, haben etwan mancherlei Völker gewohnet. Als Mesi, Goten, Sarmaten, Scythier und andere. Ihre Grecia, das ist das Griechenland, hat vom Aufgang die Land Dalmatia. Epirus: Hellas. Thessalien, Mazedonien, Achaia und zwei im Meer gemeiniglich Illyricus. Und alle Griechenland und Dalmatia sind von Delim der größte Stadt derselben Provinz genannt. …”
Translation:
“From lower [something] Macedonia lies there within.
There have long dwelt various peoples. As Mesi
Goths: Sarmatians, Scythians and their Greece etc. is
the Greek land. From the rising [east] the land [of] Dalmatia.
Epir: Hellada. Thessalia, Macedonia, Achaia and
two [regions] in the sea commonly [called] Illyricus. And all
the state[s] of the same province go [extend]. In Epirus lies Chaonia,
formerly called Molossa. [Then] the [land] of the Greeks which one also
calls Attica is the proper Greek land where once
Athens the city, a mother [of arts/culture?], created. And near the
essence/realm of the rich… but Greece [proper] from the province as
Boeotia and Thessalia. There in [it] a golden shilling
was made [minted?], in which a horse was found.”
Source
Hartmann Schedel. “Das Buch der Croniken vnnd Geschichten” (also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle or Liber Chronicarum, German edition), printed in Nuremberg in 1493 by Anton Koberger.
