Cries, Itinerants and Services

Marcellus Laroon’s The Cryes of the City of London drawne after the life were originally published in 1687. They are a kind of advertising leaflet. The image on the left is one of 2 original title pages of The Cryes. There are quite a few from the series on display in the Cries, Itinerants and Services section among the John Jonhson exhibition at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. The exhibition features trade ephemera - A Nation of Shopkeepers - issued between 1654 and 1860.

The image on the right (c. 1637) shows 'singing glasses', a type of glass horn or trumpet in whose mouthpiece was a music (or noise) making reed. It is thought that (the now defunct) novelty glass items were either exempt or ignored by the then trade controls exerted by the Company of Glass-Sellers. [Thanks Bibi - via]

Harmonia Macrocosmica

The Earth and its Celestial Circles 1661 A. Cellarius

German-Dutch latin school rector Andreas Cellarius is renowned in celestial cartography for his 1660 Harmonia Macrocosmica. It is an atlas of the celestial world systems of Copernicus, Brahe, Ptolemy and Aratus, supplemented with numerous other cosmolographical starmaps and plates. All told, there are 30 double folio colour plates (inventory of copies) and together with an accompanying latin text, the University of Utah has a complete facsimile of the 1661 edition.

Other online versions:

• Rare Book Room
• Bibliothèque de l’Université Louis Pasteur

Corpus Hermeticum

Emblem from A. Bocchi
Symbolicarum quaestionum.
Bologna, 1574






The JR Ritman Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam have an exhibition (with some scans) entitled Hermes Trismegistus - Pater Philosophorum. Modern evalutation divides the Hermetic texts into practical - alchemy, magic and astrology - and philosophical works.

In relation to the philosophical Hermetic texts......"The most important works amongst these are: the Latin Asclepius, the translation of which was for a long time wrongly attributed to Apuleius of Madaura (ca 123), the Corpus Hermeticum, fragments of Hermetic texts from the anthology of philosophical works, compiled by Johannes Stobaeus (ca 500), fragments from Lactantius, Cyrillus and others and Hermetic texts from the gnostic library of Nag Hammadi, including Coptic fragments of the Asclepius and the Hermetic definitions (cf Mahé)."

Romanian Religious Works

I was thumbing through a Romanian cultural portal (as you do) and although some information and some sites are in english, I stumbled upon what appears to be a repository for antique religious manuscript pages. Many of the images are similarly designed to that below and of course there's no explanation in english. The hashwork (well, that's my term for it) is reminscent of celtic markings.

Liturghierul lui Macarie (slavonă), 1508

That they are religious seems likely with all the 'liturgy' and 'bible' permutations in romanian scattered through the headings and accompanying descritpions - and that's of course a coptic cross in the eagle's beak. I tried a romanian translator for the above site but the result was abysmal. And that writing on the Macarie image could be old slavic or coptic script for all I know.

Pop-Up Books

• Pop-up/moveable book exhibition at University of North Texas
• Pop-up books: how to
• Robert Sabuda home
  
• A review of Sabuda's work (published today - copied in as a comment)
  
• Google images pop-ups

Perry Visits Japan

Landing of Commodore Perry, Officers & Men of the Squadron to meet the Imperial commissioners at Simoda, Japan, June 8th, 1854

Wilhelm Heine 1855-1856
Elephant folio lithograph




This painting belongs to one of 3 sets of artistic works that all record the first official contact between Japan and America. A set of anonymous Japanese painted scrolls from the latter half of the 19th century and 3 Japanese broadside woodcut illustrations on tissue paper make up the visual display of the Perry Visits Japan exhibition at Brown University. Included are student essays and expedition diary accounts.