Illustrations depicted many never before illustrated major cities in Europe and the Near East. 645 original woodcuts were used for the illustrations. As with other books of the period, many of the woodcuts, showing towns, battles or kings were used more than once in the book, with just the text labels changed. The book is large at 18 inches by 12 inches. Only the city of Nuremberg is given a double-page illustration with no text measuring about 342 x 500mm. The illustration for the city of Venice is adapted from a much larger woodcut of 1486 by Erhard Reuwich in the first illustrated printed travel book, the "Sanctae Perigrinationes" of 1486. This and other sources were used where possible; where no information was available a number of stock images were used and reused up to eleven times. The view of Florence was adapted from an engraving by Francesco Rosselli.