Grand Perspectives

"In the 18th and 19th centuries a device with a lens and mirror called the zograscope was used to give an illusion of depth to hand colored engravings called vue d’optique prints.

The zograscope is placed over a hand colored print so that the print is reflected in the mirror held at an angle. The spectator looks into the magnifying lens on the front of the instrument to view the reflection. The lens and mirror impart a quality of depth to the flat print. These instruments were popular parlor amusements in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It is a sort of peepshow without the box." [source]

The 18th century zograscope prints seen here by GB Probst were spliced together from screenshots from the Gallica site at the BNF. The images posted below are cropped: in the border surrounds of the full prints, the title(s) are given (usually) in two to four languages and a mirror image of the basic title - specifically for the zograscope - usually appears at the top, above the illustration.

Vue du jardin des Ciprés

Cypress Gardens, 1750 (location unknown)

Le marché au sel, ou la grande Place de Breslau du côté du midi

The salt market at noon in the great square of Breslau (Wroclaw, Poland), 1740

Vue auprès de la Mosquée du Sultan Mechemet et de Selim à Constantinople

View from the Mosque of Sultans Mehmet and Selim, in Constantinople (Istanbul)

Vuë ou perspective de la Ville de Bethlehem Comme les 3 Rois Mages, savoir Gaspar, Melchior, Baltasar vinrent de l'Orient, pour y adorer Jesus Nouveau né, et lui apporte les presens, savoir : l'Or, l'Encens, et la Myrrhe

View or perspective of the city of Bethlehem as the three Magi - called Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar - arrive from the east, bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh, in honour of the newborn baby Jesus

De Groote of St Walburgs Kerk te Zutphen
aldus te zien aan teind van de Roden Toren Straat

St Walburg's church in Zutphen (Gelderland, Holland), 1770

Vue du Cours de Marseille

Marseilles boulevard vista

Vue à Batavie du côté de la Courtine du Château

Canal prospect with Fort Batavia's Pearl bastion (Jakarta, Indonesia), 1750

Arc Triomphal à Canton

The Triumphal Arch in the main street in Guangzou, China

Le dedans du Palais de l'Empereur de Chine à Péking

View of the Imperial Chinese Palace in Beijing, 1750

Vue dessus du Port vers l'Eglise à Goude

View over the canal/port to the church at Gouda, Holland, 1740

't Stadhuis te Wlissingen uit de Zee te zien

View of City Hall in Vlissingen (Holland) from the sea, 1750

L'Ancienne Ville de Palmira comme elle subsiste encore

The ancient city of Palmyra (Syria) as it still exists today*

Projet d'une Place à St Petersbourg en Russie

View along an avenue in St Petersburg, Russia, 1740

La Magasin des Provisions de la Cour, sur la rivière de Fontacka, à St Petersbourg

Supply stores along the banks of the Fotanka river* in St Petersburg, Russia, 1740

Vue Perspective de la Biblioteque de Ste Geneviève de Paris

View of the Saint Geneviève Library in Paris (undated)

**Easter egg print : find this at the source and it leads to 80 more**

La Bibliothèque de l'Université de Göttinghe

The university library in Gottingen, Germany, 1740

Representation d'un Bal de Noblesse

Print depicting a ball for the nobility (location unknown), 1740

L'Amphitheatre de Rome, sixiéme miracle du Monde

The Roman amphitheatre - the 6th wonder of the world*

Phare de l'Egypte, septiéme miracle du Monde

The Lighthouse of Egypt (Alexandria) : the 7th wonder of the world

A collection of some eighty hand-coloured engraved prints by Georg Balthasar Probst are available from the Gallica website. {once you load an image, click on 'Display' to get a full-screen, zooming interface} (And, as noted above**, clicking through on one particular image reveals a further eighty prints)

This Grand Perspectives post very much derives from an entry seen on the (excellent) Gallica blog a few months ago (in which you'll find a link to the whole collection of vue d'optique prints).

"Georg Balthasar Probst was a German artist, engraver and publisher in Augsburg, a major European publishing center in the 17th and 18th centuries. He produced architectural views of places around the world intended as vues d’optiques, which were published in various places during the last half of the 18th century, including Paris, Augsburg and London."

The Artillery Book

16th century explosives and fireworks

'Artilleriebuch' (BSB Cgm 909) by Walther Litzelmann was recently digitised and uploaded by the Bavarian State Library.

It is a ~500 page paper manuscript from 1582 filled with sketches of bombs, cannons and fireworks, for the most part. The elaborate titlepage advises (thanks NINA!) that Litzelmann belonged to the Bavarian Armoury or Arsenal at Ingolstadt and that the secrets of saltpetre and gunpowder production would be revealed within.

There are no references to the manuscript or the author online and I would speculate that it is most likely a compilation of designs and recipes from earlier sources.
[See George's detailed comments below]

Previously: combat.

Cuban Critters

These illustrations are from an atlas of twenty plates that constitutes one volume of 'Histoire Physique, Politique et Naturelle de l'ile de Cuba' (1838-1857), online via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

The BHL has a few more versions (or volumes) here : I think the fourth entry has all 13 volumes from the series, which had an overall editor/author in the Spanish botanist and anarchist, Ramon de la Sagra, who was the Director of the Botanical Gardens in Cuba.

Some of the plates from this series of twenty would make good colouring-in material to while away a child's rainy afternoon I suspect (there are plenty of outlined little beasties in the unseen balance of plates; similar to a couple of images above). At full size, the images are >4000px on the short side. At the BHL site, choose a plate from the menu in the left sidebar and hit the print icon to load an enlarged version in a pop-up window and right click to download. Easy.

Previously: Cuba.

UPDATE: The BHL blog Book of the Week feature for July 21, 2011.

Monstrorum Historia

Woodcut illustrations from Aldrovandi's 'History of Monsters'

Capreolus Polyceros

Monstrum triceps capite Vulpis, Draconis, & Aquilae

Monstrum tetrachiron alatum capite humano aurito

Orobonis Piscis effigies

Camphurch effigies

Homo Fanesius auritus

Icon Monstrosae cuiusdam Chimaerae

Monstrum alatum, & cornutum instar Cacodaemonis

Pseudophyseter

Monstrum Marinum rudimenta habitus Episcopi referens

Equus marinus monstrosus

Aper Marinus Cetaceus

Canis monstroso capite

Monstra Niliaca Parei

Infans [..]^, cum promuscide, & capitibus animalium

Monstrosus Sur marinus

Draco marinus monophthalmos bipes

Gallus Indicus auritus tridactylus

Gallus monstrosus

Monstrum cornutum, and alatum aliud

Monstrum hermaphroditicum pedibus aquilinis

To quote myself..

"Ulissi Aldrovandi (Aldrovandus) (1522-1605) graduated from Padua and Bologna Universities with degrees in law, philosophy and medicine and taught logic to supplement the occasional patronage bestowed on him by his cousin, the Pope.

During nearly a year of confinement in Rome while fighting a heresy charge, Aldrovandi developed a strong interest in the natural world. He began to collect all manner of specimens which apparently came to constitute a formidable natural history museum for those that visited him.

He travelled quite a bit in his quest for specimens and recorded his observations in some 4000 manuscripts, a number of which were published during his lifetime. His writings include studies in ornithology, medicine, hydrology, zoology, botany and, as can be imagined from the embellished and fantastical images here, a paper on mythical creatures as well (among others).

Aldrovandi was instrumental in establishing the botanical gardens in Bologna and his alma mater there awarded him the first Professorial chair in natural science."

• 'Monstrorum Historia' was first published in ~1642 and the cropped - and very slightly background cleaned - images above were selected from a copy hosted by the Digital Library of Strasbourg University. Although it's not really my thing, you'll find a large number of birth deformity illustrations in this volume, if that rocks your world*. (the book icon up top, on the left, gives thumbnail page views) The woodcut illustrations are by Jean-Baptiste Coriolan. [*You might also like this Guardian article: 'Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of Human Body' by Armand Marie Leroi, 2004]
• The AMS Historica site at the University of Bologna Digital Library has a number of Aldrovandi works, including the History of Monsters. {Thanks Raffaele & Andrea!!}
  
• Youtube user Shivabel has posted lots of rare book slideshows set to music (definitely worth wandering around their uploads) including 'Monstrorum Historia'.
• BNF's version of 'Monstrorum Historia' (possibly the easiest way to skim through the book)
• Previously: monsters.
  
• Aldrovandi works at Amazon.
• UPDATE : 'Monstrorum Historia' is accessible from the University of Oklahoma Libraries too (thumbnail page)