BibliOdyssey

Monday, October 17, 2005

Les Jardins

George Louis Le Rouge: Detail des nouveaux jardins a la mode. Paris 1777. from University of Wisconsin's Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture.

This is a collection of 30 landscape / architecture plates. There is a fabulous interface with thumb views and multiple resolution images available. Even at the high resolution end I couldn't quite work out whether all of the 'plates' are in fact engravings. I had a slight feeling sometimes on a couple of the plates that they were the original sketches. His work is of exceptional quality to me. Le Rouge did however produce antique map engravings I noted from a quick search.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Cryptic Monk Magick

I won't pretend that I've understood the complexities that attach to the life and works of the German Abbot Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516). On one reading this formidable intellect, who was advisor to the Crown and an enthusiastic library builder at the Abbey in Sponheim, was a fully fledged occultist who published works on Cabalistic Angelic Magick.

Whereas his legacy was broader than the esoteric writings he produced on steganography and cryptography and he is otherwise regarded as a devoted Christian humanist who "sought to bring all of human learning to bear on the study of sacred theology".

His most memorable work is Steganographia at once both a grimoire (book to conjure spirits) and a treatise on code writing. It was published about 1510 and it was at some time banned and Trithemius was accused of black magic, although this didn't particularly interfere with the favour he held at the royal court. All three images here are from Steganographia.

Interestingly, it has only been in the last 10 years or so that volume III, the more magick-orientated section of Steganographia, has had its code broken and it would seem that the occultist was closer to cryptographer than conjurer after all.

2 images from Cornell University's The Fantastic in Art and Fiction exhibit.
2 images from Keio University (click on 'commentary' and there are 2 links in Japanese leading to the images)
Hill Museum and Manuscript Library extensive exhibit (concentrates on Trithemius's more Catholic writings - but with book scans and commentary)
Steganographia in latin (it is about 8 pages long and I'm not sure if it is complete or whether the few pages of commentary afterwards are actually in reference to Steganographia or not)
This Italian site has the complete facsimile scans of Steganographia but in pdf format - (I baulked after opening the first one because of a bit of a resources overload)
Washington University cryptography book collection - some commentary about 2/3 of the way down the page.
A book review of Trithemius and Magical Theology: A Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe 1999 - Michigan State University.
Cryptographic Theory and Scientific Theory in the 17th century - Stanford University.
The solving of the 500 year old mystery.
Wikipedia on Johannes Trithemius.
Update (August 2008) - 'Polygraphiae Libri Sex' by Trithemius from 1518 has just been posted online by HAB.

Imagining Midwifery

"consyderynge the manyfolde, dayly and imminent dangerours and parells, the which all manner of women...in theyr labours do sustayne...I thought it should be a very charitable and laudabel dede: and ryght thanfully to be accepted of all honourable and other honest matrones, yf by my paynes this lytell treatyse were made to speak Englysshe."

(obviously during Jane Fonda video workout)

The publication names/author/year are in the URL for each image above - clicking will give a slightly larger version.

These are just random images from a few sites. Come the revolution when I'm installed as Book Digitizing Emperor, first job after putting website frame coders up on telegraph poles will be to decree that all the early obstetrical text books be made available online.

The quote above comes from the preface to the english edition (The Byrth of Mankynde or The Womans Booke) of Eucharius Rösslin's groundbreaking treatise on birth and midwifery from 1513, Der Swangern Frawen und Hebamen Rosengarten. [Rösslin is misspelt in the URLs above]

University of Kansas Clendening History of Medicine Library and Museum rare text images on reproduction.
Case Western Reserve University Dittrick History Medical Center Obstetric Literature and the Changing Character of Childbirth.
University of Glasgow Library Special Collection's Books for Women.
Some random other images (this last one is definitely not safe for work, if Frida Kahlo's non-subtle birth depiction is considered outside the scope of art)
This site - The Doe Report - is a great resource for today's state of the art illustrations - all facets of anatomy and not just gynaecology/obstetrics
Pitt University's Multiple Births in Legend and Folklore
A Short History of Midwifery
History of Midwifery Timline
A History of Midwifery in Pictures (sorry, it's geocities but still pretty good)
University of Pennsylvania's A Century of Obstetrics
A Midwife's Tale - PBS.
Indiana University's Midwives and Maternity Care in the Roman World
University of Manitoba's Dying to Have a Baby - A History of Childbirth.

" The main text in the older part is the Latin translation by Germanicus (15 BC-19 AD) of the Greek Phaenomena by Aratus of Soli (c. 315-c. 240 BC), which describes the constellations. This is illustrated with a series of remarkable diagrams and coloured drawings reflecting the overlap between myth, astronomy and astrology at this period."

I was absorbed with this extraordinary book for over an hour. As the early 19th century owner wrote inside the front cover, "Astronomy and very curious".