Images of Thought

Johannes Hevelius in Machina coelestis Volume I, 1673. He is a founder of lunar topography. He used this device to project an image of the moon which he proceeded to map.


"The Würzburg monk Johannes Zahn is obsessed with optical phenomena connected with vision and the use of lenses." 1685


Smelting furnace design 1806.


"For a time the Italian Tuccaro is gymnastics instructor to the young King of France, Charles IX" 1599


Image from Alexander Doyle's 1719 book, Voltagier-Kunst.


Jacques Besson(i), Il Theatro de gl' Instrumenti e Machine con una brieve dichiaration di tutte le figure di F. Beroaldo. 1582.


Andreas Cellarius 'The Battering Ram in Combat' from Architectura Militaris, 1645.

This collaborative Swedish site (in ~english) is the best digital exhibit I've seen since...well, let's just say it is brilliant and comprehensive and larger than expected. Kungliga bibloteket, Stockholms universitetsbibliotek, Umeå universitet, Uppsala universitetsbibliotek, and 8 other organisations have combined to present 'Tankens bilder - Images of Thought'.

Basically it tracks intellectual thought since the dawn of illustrative printing, covering anatomy, natural science, astronomy, engineering, warcraft, artistic perspective (and more) and with a particular devotion to the development of printing in relation to illustrations. It all stems from scans they present from rare books. This is truly a fantastic site for a book image junkie like myself. Note: the sidebar links will take you to one large section of this site; the icons on the main page will take you to another.