Printing Between the Lines: A Sixteenth-Century Historical Table

Johann Funck's "Chronologia" was one of the most popular tabular chronologies of the early modern period with several editions following its original 1545 publication in Nuremberg. In my presentation, I will display an opening from the 1554 Basel edition of the same work to highlight the instability of the historical table in its printed form. I will focus on the ostensibly restrictive—but actually quite fluid—boundaries of the table's rows, columns, and cells in terms of their intellectual foundation and bibliographical construction. The printed sixteenth-century historical table is an artifact designed to be absorbed in a glance, yet it rewards the attentive viewer who lingers and zooms in.