The British Museum Print Database

"Satire around the four numbers of the year
'1690', each representing a continent at war"

"Set of twelve horizontal compositions of comic
figures with large heads and small bodies, engaged in
different group activities" 1686 (After Pietro de Rossi)

'Machina del Mondo, ogn'un cerca di star sopra il compagno'

"A pyramid of ten persons climbing on top of each other,
the poor at the bottom, the king at the top; Death appears to
take them all" - "Titled along the top and with ten
numbered identifications of the persons in the pyramid
and with Death stating 'Et io tutti pareggio'" 1675-1710

'Bugia peste e cagion d'ogni gran male'

"Allegorical figure of Lying, a woman with one leg
and her dress covered with masks" 1680-1710

[addit: this text is obviously wrong - the Museum staff have changed it but the correct title won't appear until the site is refreshed in a week]

'Caccia Giocosa invenzioni di Gioseffo Maria Mitelli pittore Bolognese,
da lui effettivamente sperimentate, e dedicate a chi si diletta della caccia'

"'Playful Hunt', consisting of title-page and sheet of explanation in letterpress,
plus fifteen numbered plates showing absurd ways to hunt birds; second edition
(Bologna, nella stamperia di Lelio della Volpe, 1745) of a series first published in 1684"

'Genio: Laborem ocio, ocium labore variat'

"Statue of Genius, surrounded by children
devoting themselves to various pastimes" 1691

'Il bilanzino giustissimo con due figure d'oro'

"A Spanish and French soldier weighed in a balance,
with the Frenchman emerging on top" 1692

'Il corrier che mai si ferma, si corre per le poste e non si burla'

"Two figures on horseback, the traveller led by Time as the courier,
ride towards the pit that death has dug before him" 1691

'La quaresima saggia'
"Masked dancer playing a guitar representing Carnival" 1680-1710

'Mira qui come va senza ritengo la cecitade humana al cieco regno'
"Series of three plates with a procession of blind-folded humans,
representing the seven deadly sins, being led to death by devils" 1679

'Quale di questi tre e più intricato?'
"Three trios, of foxes with a hen, of money-lenders
with a victim, and cats with a mouse" 1675-1710

'Se conoscer mi voi mi scoprirai'
A beautiful woman playing a guitar; a flap
lifts to reveal a skulll beneath the head. 1698
[note: I removed the flap - it was just a blank piece
off the top of the print the way they photographed it]

'Secreto sicurissimo per non mai morire'
"Death as a skeleton attacks with his
scythe a man in bed who blows at him" 1706

'Semo quattro fantolini della mamma e del papà'
"Titled along the bottom; the four types are identified
as 'Messier Papa e Tace', 'Messier Contemplativo',
'Messier Alto e Basso' and 'Messier Puzzolente'" 1680-1710

'Va tutto in fuga: Globi di fumo son titoli e vanti: Fumo e Cenere'
"A large chimney-piece with a fire at the base, up which
people climb, but at the chimney at the top emerge
only broken shreds of their power and authority" 1700

{puzzle-picture}
Rebus in nine lines with religious and moral texts designed
to be cut out and pasted onto one side of a fan. 1693

One of the most significant cultural collections of 2-dimensional art (prints, drawings and paintings) in the world made its relatively silent debut online recently. The British Museum has spent more than 15 years gearing up for this moment.

In my opinion this is the equivalent of the commencement of NYPL or the Library of Congress online. Seriously, this is a vast treasure trove and once you've spent any time there you'll never bother returning to poor old BibliOdyssey.

The advanced search page is the best place to start (and bookmark) [there appears to be no real home page as such]. The size of the database is enormous. There are more than 13,000 satirical prints for instance. A free text search on 'London' produces a similar number. There are over one thousand prints by Albrecht Dürer. 'Ornament' returns more than three thousand images. Although the image sizes vary, most are at least close to screen size and there is no watermarking. [See the Guardian Arts article]

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Rather than go wandering aimlessly around with my mouth agog, poaching images left, right and centre, I thought I would take a sampling from the Italian graphic artist, Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (1634-1718) whose novel etchings were first introduced to me by a series of posts made by the esteemed (and now retired) custodian of Giornale Nuovo, Mr H.

To save playing the role of mere regurgitator, go and see the posts Giuseppe Maria Mitelli; More Mitelli and Mitelli's Games for further information about the artist and to see some other examples of his eclectic works. [There are some additional Mitelli alphabet images scattered across a few other posts at Giornale Nuovo]. I'll just be resting in the corner while you're gone.

Mineral Conchology of Great Britain

The son of a lapidary, James Sowerby (1757-1822) studied art at the Royal Academy and came to be the patriarch over a family line of naturalist illustrators.

Sowerby obtained employment with the botanist William Curtis and contributed plates and hand colouring to 'The Botanical Magazine' and 'Flora Londinensis'. In 1790 he commenced the first of what would become a series of monumental projects with the production of some 2,500 plates over more than twenty years for Sir James Smith's 36 volume, 'English Botany'. By the end of the 18th century Sowerby was regarded as the leading British illustrator of botanical specimens.

Beyond plants, Sowerby applied his talents most significantly to extensive works on geology, mineralogy, mycology and, as with the fossil illustrations seen above, invertebrate palaeontology. [He also produced an innovative treatise on colour theory*]

There had been a rumour that much of Sowerby's hand-coloured engraving output was achieved with a production line. The story went that one of his three illustrator sons would apply a colour to the printed image and pass it over to his sibling for the next colour. They all did contribute to the publishing enterprises, each according to his abilities and age, but surviving records indicate that Sowerby laid down the background and left instructions for colourists, rather than there being a systematic approach in the workshop. Because many of Sowerby's publications were large multi-volume sets, the children (and other family members) became especially important in ensuring the later instalments were published after their father's death.

'Mineral Conchology of Great Britain, or Coloured Figures and Descriptions of those Remains of Testaceous Animals, or Shells which have been Preserved at Various Times, and Depths in the Earth' was issued in seven volumes between 1812 and 1846 which are online at the consistently wonderful University of Strasbourg. There are some 650 plates in the series and the above sampling was taken from across the volumes - all of the posted images (plus some more) were uploaded to this Webshots album.

• James Sowerby: His Publications and Collections.
• Wikipedia have a reasonably comprehensive article.
• Notes in relation to 'A New Elucidation of Colours, Original Prismatic and Material: Showing Their Concordance in the Three Primitives'.

Ethiopian Manuscripts

Alwan Codex 2 - Psalter - early 20th century

Left: Alwan Codex 2; Right: Alwan Codex 28

Alwan Codex 28 - Commentary on the Praises of
Mary and Gate of Light, Amharic - 20th century.

Alwan Codex 27 - Psalter - 19th/20th centuries

Eliza Codex 17 - Gospel of John; Horologium of Abba Giyorgis
for the night hours, incomplete - 16th and 18th centuries (composite)

Eliza Codex 23 - Psalter - early 20th century

Eliza Codex 24 - Psalter - 20th century.

Eliza Codex 26 -

Pillars of Mystery; Hymn to Mary, "All hosts of heaven glorify you"; Admonition; Amharic Commentary on Our Father; Amharic Commentary on Hail Mary; Wise saying in Amharic; Hymns to God, "All spiritual hosts of angels" - 19th/20th centuries.

University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural
History, Shelf Mark 10-844 - Psalter - 20th century.

The twelve apostles and the Synodicon

"The standing figures of the twelve apostles acts as a frontispiece for a collection of texts called the Synodicon, the proceedings of the early church councils, which set out the agreed principles of the Christian faith. [...] The twelve apostles form a link between Jesus and the early church. The apostles came to be seen as part of the inspired foundational stage of Christianity. The symbolism of the twelve apostles also emphasised the continuity of the early church with the twelve tribes of Israel."

"The last canon table of Eusebius [not shown] is followed by an illustration of the Annunciation to Zechariah, the first in a series of full page miniatures depicting major events surrounding the life of Christ. Following the accepted tradition of illuminated books, these miniatures are grouped together and placed before the Gospel texts. The number of miniatures vary according to different traditions.
In the Ethiopian tradition artists do not confine themselves to the life of Christ as related in the four Gospels, but also draw inspiration from other works that were excluded from the canon of the New Testament, such as the Testament of Our Lord, and the Miracles of Jesus.
This miniature depicts the Angel Gabriel appearing to Zechariah while he was serving as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Angel announces that Zechariah will have a son, John the Baptist, who will be the forerunner of Christ."

The Gospel of Matthew

"[F]rom the night that Jesus was betrayed and captured by the authorities [...] the apostle Peter is depicted with Mary and John. The cockerel placed behind Peter's head is a reminder of Jesus saying to Peter, "Truly, I say to you this very night before the cock crows twice you will deny me three times". Peter hotly denies this, but later that night while waiting in the high priest's courtyard for news of Jesus after his arrest, he denied being a follower of Jesus three times."

The above four images are taken from British Library Additional. MS 59874.

"This lavishly illustrated 17th-century manuscript contains the first eight books of the Old Testament (the Octateuch), the four Gospels, and several canons of church councils. It is written in a small elegant script with decorative borders and devices and has many lively illustrations in bold colours.

The Ethiopian church was one of five Oriental Orthodox churches which rejected the council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D., thus forming a separate tradition from the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. At the time this manuscript was produced, Ethiopia was undergoing a religious and artistic revival. The volume is a faithful copy of a 15th-century manuscript, and was probably commissioned by Emperor Iyasu (ruled 1682-1706). Historical notes in the manuscript suggest it was copied for the church of Debra Berhan Selassie, which remains one of Ethiopia's most well-known churches.

The manuscript is part of the Magdala Collection, which was given to the British Museum library [now the British Library] by the Secretary of State for India in 1868. The collection had been assembled by the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros [King Theodore] in the fortress of Magdala, which fell into British hands following a battle against Theodore in 1867."

British Library Or. MS 481, f.110v [link]

"This striking manuscript comes from the oldest independent country in Africa. It was commissioned in the last years of the 17th century by Emperor Iyasu I Yohannes of Ethiopia for use in his royal city of Gondar. Generously illuminated with distinctive miniature paintings and highly decorative coloured borders, this is one of the most beautiful of the Library's Ethiopian manuscripts. Its many illustrations include Moses, Aaron, Ruth, Eusebius, John and Carpanius, scenes from the life of Christ and portraits of the Evangelists."

"Christianity took root slowly in Ethiopia from the third decade of the 4th century. Some 150 years later, missionaries from Syria translated the Bible into Ethiopic. The Islamic conquest of neighbouring Egypt in 640-641 isolated Ethiopia from other Christian countries for the best part of a millennium. The Ethiopic Church was able to maintain only tenuous links with the rest of Christianity through the Coptic Church in Egypt, which managed to survive under its country’s Islamic rulers."

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In 2005, Steve Delamarter, Professor of Old Testament at George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Oregon, received a telephone call from a local ex-army fellow who had purchased an unusual manuscript in the mid-60s during deployment in Ethiopia, and wanted to know more about it.

Professor Delamarter made plans to digitise the work and for the images to be displayed online by the Hill Museum and Manuscripts Library (HMML) at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. From such a modest beginning, Professor Delamarter has since been on something of a crusade to obtain the cooperation and permission from a large number of private owners and institutions, particularly across the United States, to arrange for a raft of biblical and magical Ethiopian manuscripts to be digitised and uploaded to the HMML website.

I am grateful that Professor Delamarter has agreed to my extracting and uploading a selection of the biblical manuscript pages from a range of codices to wikimedia, where I was surprised to find no other Ethiopian manuscript images available. The wonderful illustrations, more suggestive of outsider art than miniature religious illuminations at times, is a body of work that is far beyond my modest abilities to reduce into any meaningful written context, so I'll just add links to material I've found most interesting.

• The SGD Collection of Ethiopian Manuscript Images at the Vivarium site, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library.
• Four of the last five images are from the British Library Turning The Pages website (Additional. MS 59874). I highly recommend the non-flash version which is much easier to use (and less of a burden on bandwidth) than the gimmicky flash version (top right).
• Ethiopian Manuscripts at wikimedia (the whole collection has been posted above).
• Professor Delamarter has made two posts this year to the Society of Biblical Literature forum which give the background to the Ethiopian Manuscript Imaging Project: Post One; Post Two.
• HMML also have an older, quite extensive exhibition site, with reasonably in-depth commentary: Cultural Traditions and Religion in Ethiopia.
• AFROMET = Association For the Return Of the Maqdala Ethiopian Treasures -- relating to the 1868 pillaging by British troops of Ethiopian heritage objects, including manuscripts, and the efforts to have them returned.
• A History of the Christian Church in Ethiopia.
• Ethiopia on the Internet - the Stanford University link list.
• Later: The Ge'ez or Ethiopic script at Omniglot.
• Much later: [pdf 2.3Mb] - 'Illuminated Manuscripts in Ethiopia: Origin. Meaning and Manufacture of two manuscripts Illuminating the Apocalyypse in Qwesqwam und Därasgä Maryam' by Dorothea McEwan, The Warburg Institute, University of London. (Thanks Patrick)