Heinrich Bullinger (1504–74), the Helvetian exegete, teacher, organizer, and leader of European sixteenth-century Protestantism and the Zurich church from 1531 to 1574, was also a noteworthy historian. Dr. Hans Ulrich Bächtold, a longtime member of the Heinrich Bullinger Briefwechsel and a coeditor of the circa 14,000 letters written by Bullinger, took the bull by its horns when he committed to editing the historical-critical edition of the Tigurinerchronik. The project was conceived at the Institute of Swiss Reformation Studies at the University of Zurich in 2004 and followed Bächtold into his retirement. He continued to the present edition of Bullinger's 1,800 handwritten folios on the history of Europe from the Roman Empire to the end of Bullinger's life, which was published in 2018.

The three-volume work is a text-critical, historical-critical edition, exhibiting the same erudite methodology of the Heinrich Bullinger Werke publications, which are systematically excellent and display exquisite technological know-how, as well as meticulous exactitude, with the superb print quality of the TVZ. The present volumes are written in Bullinger's Early New High German with long and short Latin quotations and spattered with some Greek. The same method found in other volumes of the Heinrich Bullinger Werke are present: the rendering of an exact transliteration of the original text, alphabetically ordered footnotes for textual criticism, and numbered commentary on the context appear in two columns at the bottom of each page. The author's original marginal notes are in the margins of each page. The entire apparatus is in the German language, and the Early New High German original text limits access to the Tigurinerchronik to scholars with specific Germanic-language skills.

Bullinger published his Reformationsgeschichte, a history of the Reformation between 1519 and 1532, in 1567; his Eidgenössische Geschichte (History of the Helvetic Confederation) is considered by some to be fragmentary. However, the master's historical narrative of Zurich, Tigurinerchronik, is highly praised as the best historical chronical of Zurich in its time. The three-volume edition of Heinrich Bullinger's history of Zurich is complete with a 425-page companion apparatus for the two volumes of history. This companion piece contains vibrant and vital information for research, including an index of titles, a glossary of language, a list of printed source materials, a list of literature, and a list of people and places with printed images of the crucial idiosyncrasies of the first three volumes of the Heinrich Bullinger Vierte Abteilung: Historische Schriften.

The first volume begins with a preface of Bullinger's declared intention and enormous goal to write a history from the times before the birth of Christ until 1400. Bullinger then dedicates the Tigurinerchronik to the members of the Grossmünster Stiftung, and the leaders, elders, councillors, and members of the church in Zurich. The first chapters of the 644-page volume 1 of his history bind together the biblical narrative of the ancient Middle East to the Middle Ages, noting the progress of Christianity as it extended across the known world to influence the institutional church of Zurich, in particular. Bullinger traces Zurich's origins back to the biblical Abraham, spiraling inward toward Zurich from a European perspective, locating the inception of the Helvetic Confederation and the history of Zurich, its people, and their wars in the fourteenth century.

Volume 2 of Bullinger's historical narrative records history from circa 1400 through the early Reformation, including the Councils of Constance and Basel, and emphasizes the confederation as well as the miraculous ability of Zurich to defend itself against foreign powers. Two chapters address the conflicts of Zurich, its enemies, the city's seldom successful program for expansion, and the Old War of Zurich. The history of the Reformation and the Grossmünster Church, which are both emotionally and physically at the center of historical Zurich, tells of the foundation of the Latin school, the Prophezei, in 1523, which became Heinrich Bullinger's Schola Tigurina and is the basis for today's Swiss theological higher educational system. Volume 2 includes documents from the school and the Zurich Council.

Bullinger peppers his detailed chronicle, fastidious methods, and historical precision with what he saw and heard during his long life spent as a scholar and the chief pastor in Zurich. Although Bullinger thought he was writing from a neutral position, his sixteenth-century plumb line was a biblical worldview. He wrote of Rome as the great beast in the book of Daniel, and the Carolingians were the image of the beast in John's Revelation. The pope embodied the anti-Christ. Wars can be considered God's punishment, and the great Reformer was confident that Zurich desired God and true religion. A nineteenth-century publication of Bullinger's Reformation history exists; his history of Zurich waited until now.

In the dedication and introduction to the Tigurinerchronik, Bullinger describes forty years of collecting material to write the history of Zurich, and how in the past year (1572) he was able to write the eight books of history. In the same breath, Bullinger attributes the Tigurinerchronik in its entirety to the loving kindness and assistance of God; with heartfelt thanks to God, he hopes that the chronicle might lend honor to God and serve the salvation and welfare of many. Bullinger the humanist approached history as “a witness in time, light of truth, teaching master of life, and herald of time” (x). He refreshes the chronicle of events with social history and mixes the secular with the church and theology. Some argue that Bullinger's writings are 75 percent political; indeed, if we take what Bullinger said about his work at face value, the prolific thinker believed “it is God who directs the history of all people according to his plan” (3). Bullinger was first and foremost a theologian: his grid for understanding was a tapestry woven with theology and history, theology and politics, God and modern humanism, and this is one of the reasons that the Tigurinerchronik is a significant gift from Zurich to early modern scholarship.