Half Life

Illustration © Jeremiah Maddock as seen on:
my love for you is a stampede of horses [via Elly Yap].

The famous Wound Man* together with the anatomy and phlebotomy diagrams and the urine 'connoisseurs' illustrations [see also: Tabula Urinarum] come from a collection of medical treatises from South Germany compiled into the one manuscript and dated from about 1460 - Codex Palatinus Germanicus 644 at the University of Heidelberg (click "Bll. 1-50" and then the "-" sign at the top of the page to view the thumbnail images).

By way of addendum (and very slight erratum) to the BibliOdyssey Book (p.133), this picture of the Wound Man predates the earliest printed version of the iconic medical schematic by more than thirty years. The version above is certainly (?!) the oldest version online.

I read in passing that this recurring profile of iconographic forms - zodiac man*, wound man, phlebotomy man et al - are thought to derive originally from manuscripts going back to the 13th century. The oldest printed version of the Wound Man is to be found in the 1491 latin edition of 'Fasciculus Medicinae' by Johannes de Ketham - notable for being the oldest printed book containing any anatomical illustrations, a book Leonardo was said to have owned/consulted. {See: here and here.}










Never let it be said that oceanographers don't have a sense of humour. These caricatures were found among the 10,000 photographs at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives at the University of California, San Diego. I seem to recall finding a few other oddities - Marshall Islands nuclear explosion greeting cards and the somesuch.




This engraving by Dietrich Meyer from about 1650 falls within the realm of emblemata and comes replete with a range of puzzling allegorical motifs. It's (I think) ostensibly saying that the Bishop's thorny path up the pyramidal obelisk of virtue affirms the victory of life over death. (And/Or?)

The good Sir Knight battles the Whore of Babylon* and the seven vices.
The engraving from 1653 is by Conrad Meyer.

Joseph's dream of his triumph in Egypt (?) - an engraving from
1564 by Dirck Volkertsz from a design by Marten van Heemskerck.

Known as 'Triumph Hiobs' (I presume Hiobs = Job, a la Old Testament),
this 1564 engraving is also by Dirck Volkertsz/Marten van Heemskerck.

These all come from the very interesting graphics collection at the Danube University Krems in Austria. (best way to view things is via the search - 'suchen' - page with easy to follow drop down menus). Although I would say that the collection tends to be predominantly religious in nature, it is more geared towards the allegorical and eccentric 'sky wizardry' types than regular Christian iconography. There is a fair smattering of portraits (including one of Fr. Kircher I don't think I'd seen before) as well as architectural and landscape prints around. (probably via Archivalia)




From Jan Swammerdam's famed 1752 insect book, 'Bibel der Natur', one of the Object of the Month series at Humboldt University (I think these are drawn from the wonderful Natural History Collection)








'The Punishments of China' (1801/1804) by GH Mason at NYPL "looks like a cheerful children's book, but it provides graphic detail of ingenious cruelties devised to penalize thieves, disorderly women and translators who willfully misinterpreted others' words. The punishment for "committing fraud on merchants" was to be suspended face down on a canvas sling that could be tightened to back-breaking extremes." (for example)
Coincidentally, a copy of this book is presently on display in an exhibition at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles: 'China on Paper: European and Chinese Works From the Late Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century'.
















This 1514 book from Munich State Library is very resistant to all my searching efforts despite my having saved some identifying details. It is a religious book of some sort. By that I mean that it may be something about the history of acceptance of Mary into Christianity as a Saintly figure, but there was also a relationship to Judaism if I recall correctly. My notes say: "[Impressum]
Enderung vn[d] schmach der bildung Marie von de[n] jude[n] bewissen. vn[d] zu ewiger gedechtnüsz durch Maximilianu[m] den römische[n] keyser zu male[n] verschaffet in der löbliche[n] stat kolmer. vo[n] da[n]nen sy ouch ewig vertriben syndt, [Straßburg] urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00011433-7 [1511]" I of course just kept the torture scenes which were very much in the minority - most of the woodcuts in the book were in fact rather more benign than these.




The trippy healing mandalas drawn on graph paper by Emma Kunz (1892-1963) were obviously influenced by her Swiss family of weavers and call to my mind theosophy and spirographs equally. [via Tomorrowland]


Other things....

• The David Rumsey site added more than 1500 new maps to their collection at the end of November (scroll down a little).
• A collection of links relating to 15th/16th century Book of Hours by French printer Simon Vostre, put together by The Little Professor.
• I don't pretend to understand the Digital Sample Book from the Rochester Institute of Technology other than to say that you can see, compare and manipulate a huge range of highly magnified samples of printing techniques from woodcut to laser printer and everything in between.
• My New Year's resolution was to make these multi posts smaller thereby extending the half life of my sanity.

For the benefit of the rss readers, here are all the digital library and resource sites from the sidebar (a few new ones added in the last couple of months)...

∇ library of congress
∇ british library
∇ library france
∇ library holland
∇ library spain
∇ library portugal
∇ european library
∇ library australia
∇ collections canada
∇ digital poland
∇ nypl digital
∇ botanicus digital
∇ rare book room
∇ britmuseum prints
∇ smithsonian galaxy
∇ casglu'r tlysau
∇ rumsey collection
∇ digital scriptorium
∇ cesg manuscripts
∇ digital book index
∇ primary sources
∇ online exhibitions
∇ worldcat search
∇ library directory
∇ digital librarian
∇ intute resources
∇ herder institute
∇ warburg institute
∇ lexilogos links
∇ digiwiki links
∇ archivalia blog
∇ book arts web
∇ arts journal
∇ artcyclopedia
∇ woodblock
∇ coconino
∇ alchemy website
∇ health history links
∇ history network
∇ new advent