In 1540, humanist polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer, professor, and printer, Peter Apian (1495-1552) published one of the most lavishly illustrated scientific books ever printed. Dedicated to German Emperor Charles V and Ferdinand I, King of Bohemia, the Astronomicum Caesareum (Imperial Astronomy) contains 21 volvelles and 58 hand-colored woodcuts that involve some of the most spectacular dragons in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
A tiny masterpiece of Flemish illumination, the Warburg Book of Hours in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division recently received a new binding that allows readers to better view some of most beautiful paintings and trompe-l'œil manuscript borders in the Library’s collection.
Happy Giant Bible Day! On April 4, 1952, philanthropist and bibliophile, Lessing J. Rosenwald (1891-1979) donated the Giant Bible of Mainz to the Library of Congress. He made this gift exactly five hundred years after the manuscript’s scribe first put quill to parchment. In keeping with Rosenwald's commitment to encouraging broad cultural engagement with the history of the illustrated book, the Library’s digitization allows book lovers near and far to encounter every page of this important and evocative manuscript.
At the end of the fifteenth century, simplified versions of medical charts featuring an image of the "Zodiac Man" began to appear in Books of Hours. The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division contains many examples of these printed editions, one of which uses a skeleton in place of the Zodiac Man.
The Library of Congress has several important works by the printmaker, painter, and art theorist, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), including his famous engraving, Melencolia I (1514), and his Treatise on Measurement (1525).
Gregor Reisch's (c.1470-1525) encyclopedic textbook, Margarita Philosophica (Philosophical Pearl) contains a woodcut that speaks to the process of education in the sixteenth century.
