Carte Geografiche

Giacomo (Jacomo) Franco (1550-1620) spent his whole life in Venice where he worked as a cartographic engraver and publisher in the family business. Although there is scant background material online, evidence for his mapmaking competence can be inferred from the noted cartographer Abraham Ortelius having relied on a Franco map as a reference source.

The array of hand-coloured engravings seen above are from a (presumably) draft collection of illustrations engraved by Franco in 1597 that would be formally published the following year. The book in which they would appear -- 'Viaggio da Venetia a Constantinopoli per Mare' (Voyage from Venice to Istanbul by Sea) -- was ostensibly a navigational guide that saw a number of editions. The accompanying text was supplied by the humanist cartographer Giuseppe Rosaccio and included economic, historical and travel-related details in addition to the navigational notes.

The Viaggio plates (64 in the informal 'Carte Geografiche' suite) depict all the major cities, islands and visible landmarks along the recommended sailing route through the Adriatic, Ionian, Mediterranean and Aegean Seas [map].


Croatia's National and University Library in Zagreb host the 'Carte Geografiche' -- click on the image to launch the painless flash interface or the inside margin list for small images of Croatian towns. All the images above are screencaps: the first and last depict Venice and Istanbul respectively, but the rest are probably out of order.

Previously: cartography

Fungis Danicis

[click through for full sized versions; the images have been recentred and spot cleaned in the background]

"Fifty-seven newly-named fungi, five new combinations and fifty-two totally new taxa are only part of the significance of Johan Theodor Holmskjold's 'Beata Ruris Otia Fungis Danicis Impensa', or Happy Resting Periods in the Country Studying Danish Fungi.

The stunningly rendered, impeccably accurate, and beautiful illustrations of each of the seventy four specimens in the two-volume work led Swedish botanist Anton Jahan Retzius (1742-1821) to call it "the most brilliant work which had appeared up to that time". [...]

Beata was almost as unlikely as it is impressive. After graduating from the University of Copenhagen in 1760 with a medical degree, and touring Europe and studying with botanist Christen Friis Rottboll (1727-1797), Theodor Holm spent only three years as a professor of natural history at the Academy of Sorø. In 1765, at age 34, he left the academy with a pension, and spent the next two years resting in the countryside near the Danish seaport of Aarhus, indulging his interest in botany by observing and writing about the fungi he found there. He also commissioned artist Johan Neander to make detailed, life-size drawings of the specimens Holm collected and described.

It seems this brief period formed the basis of his research for Beata, because in 1767 he was appointed one of the general directors of the Danish postal service, and he spent the rest of his life serving his queen and king in several capacities."

The quotation and all of the images above - presumably transparencies rather than page scans - come from a subsite within the Harvard University Herbaria: The Life and Works of Theodor Holmskjold. Regrettably, there are no more of these vibrant illustrations available.

The images below are the two best on offer from a larger 'Fungis Danicis' selection - of variable physical and digital quality - at the Faculty of Life Sciences Library at Copenhagen University.

The Danish Society for Nature Conservation devotes a number of web pages, albeit in Danish, to Johan Theodor Holmskjold.

[via] | previously: Les Champignons

The Butterfly Album

[click through for larger versions; all images are screencaps taken from the flash zoom display; detail images are slightly doctored]

The Royal Digital Library of Belgium has a small album of delicate and charming gouache insect sketches produced in China in the 19th century.

The only other information known is that the butterflies and insects were collected from the Aralia (spikenard) and related Tetrapanax papyrifera (pith paper tree) plant species.

The Harvard University Herbaria has a sub-site devoted to the versatile pith paper tree, including a selection of beautiful watercolour sketches from a 2-volume series on the plant, also from the 19th century.

Previously: fauna | flora.