Unfortunately, what I like to call “designer creep” — the tendency for every consumer product to be positioned as a designed object — has infiltrated our culture to such an extent that one can no longer escape it simply by wandering off in search of gin. Beginning with the iPod in the late 90s, and buoyed by the easy credit of the pre-crash economy, design trickled down onto the high street and crept through the internet into the consciousness of average consumers. And now it’s followed me into the very last bastion of old-fashioned, unselfconscious nerdery: the library.

You can’t go a day, it seems, without running across an example of designed bookshelves. They pop up on quality book blogs and news sites, but also feature regularly in low quality “best” lists, the type of no-content content that’s so easy for time-strapped bloggers to produce. It’s not that I don’t sympathise; it can be difficult to come up with good topics on a regular basis, and an unusual or funny looking bookshelf can seem like a godsend. The problem is that few writers look at these shelves critically. Much like the Minnie Mouse shoes, they’re passed around the web being oohed and awed even though many of them barely function as bookshelves.

Yanko Design’s tagline is “Form Beyond Function”, so at least they’re honest. This gets to the heart of my problem with most designer bookcases. Design isn’t just about pushing aesthetic boundaries. It’s about making products that are beautiful and functional, whether that product is as complex as a smartphone or as simple as a ceramic pitcher.

But, in most of these bookshelf designs, function is relegated to the back-burner. The example above wastes a huge amount of space to store only fifteen, maybe thirty, volumes.  A normal set of shelves sitting in approximately the same area could hold double or triple that number of books. And all those books would be standing upright, easy to see and to pull off the shelf without pinching your fingers, and not at risk of damage because the shelf rolled and they all bumped around in their little compartments. It’s the damage-causing potential of these shelves that really drives me crazy.

This, for instance, is just terrible. So of course it won some kind of award.

“But the world is changing,” you say. “We read digitally now and don’t need to worry about damaging physical books or conserving space. We can be creative. Bookcases don’t have to be purely functional, they can represent our personalities and aspirations.”

And I agree with part of that! I’m a tech geek myself, and I appreciate the possibilities of digital reading. Not only for the books we read electronically, but for those we hold onto as physical objects. In the future there will still be physical books, but they’ll be nicer than the ones we’re used to. Instead of buying cheap paper copies of bestsellers we’ll read the latest crazes electronically. Hard copies will be produced in smaller numbers to higher standards, made to give as gifts and keep as cherished objects. Spend any time with books printed during the early modern era, or by the private presses of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and you start to see the possibilities. It’ll be the best of both worlds: free flowing digital information and beautiful physical copies of the books we love best.

So why, at precisely this moment, would you want to start buying shelves that destroy your books?

I wish this shelf, for example, was a joke. But it isn’t. I can’t find the original site for this particular model, but the same people also designed this travesty. Not a single one of the books pictured here is sitting comfortably. They’re being damaged as the dust jackets and edges of the covers wear, light attacks every surface, and the spines warp, slowly and inexorably.

We’ve also heard lots recently about bookshelf design for the “post-book world”, in which bookshelves become less about books and more about other types of objects. But does anything look happy here? I wouldn’t trust much to this curvy shelf, certainly not any antiques or objects of sentimental value, and it’s not really made to store everyday things like the sunglasses, either. This shelf just looks like a big waste of space.

But a shelf doesn’t have to be large to be a waste of space:

“I’m an idiot.”

You, too, can have a headache for only $959.

This refugee from a third-rate Cubist’s studio is Autumn, by Domodinamica. The blog where I sourced the image described it in this way,

Autum [sic] is a shelving system that gives a new take on the standard bookshelf. It is uniquely designed to give the effect of a leafless tree… With varying heights and widths you can find storage for numerous items that wouldn’t usually fit on a book shelf.

Newsflash: most items meant to go on bookshelves fit on normal bookshelves.

This example demonstrates the problem with many of these shelves: they’re designed without the books in mind. Instead of thinking “How can I make the books and the shelves look good together?” the designer wonders, “How can I make a shelf that looks cool, maybe like a tree?”. I’m not strictly opposed to cool shelves, and I like autumn trees. But once you start filling this shelf it all goes wrong. The books don’t look like scattered leaves on a tree. They ruin the lines of the case, and the case ruins the lines and beauty of the books.

Here’s another egregious example that pops up regularly:

The Bookworm by Ron Arad ticks all my rage boxes. By far one of the most widely available of these designs, it’s for sale in the MOMA shop and at a few high street retailers. I believe part of the appeal is that you can mount the shelf in any way you like, making a worm or even a spiral. This has been described as “daring and revolutionary” (see the last link), but in addition to being a waste of space, damaging to the books, and difficult to use, it’s ugly as sin. Books and other objects never look good on it — just do an image search to see people’s photos of the completed shelves. It’s the disconnect between the flowing lines of the shelf and the straight lines of the books, which end up clumped together at odd intervals. Again, I’m all for interesting, even challenging, juxtapositions where appropriate in design, but this just looks cheap and gimmicky.

The argument in these designs’ favour is that the whole point is to push boundaries. But artists, fashion designers, and engineers become great because they force on the viewer new ideas and perspectives. I’m not sure what these bookshelf designs are supposed to accomplish, but it’s certainly not that. A big round bookshelf with room for 15 books doesn’t make me question the nature of the book or its role in my life, just how to get a volume off the shelf without jamming my fingers. Though if you bought one you would have to question why you have books at all if they’re barely visible, inconveniently stored, and getting damaged by the very thing that’s supposed to protect them.

These problems are by no means restricted to bookshelves; I’ve run across lots of other design travesties in technology and home decorating. The difference is that an annoying can opener can be left harmlessly in a drawer, but once your books are broken they’re broken forever. If this is the future of “shelving systems”, just give me an e-reader and be done with it.

Against Designed Bookshelves: A Photo Essay

I’m working at Peter Harrington and writing The Cataloguer’s Desk.  It’s an informal look at daily life as a bookseller, the interesting items we come across, and shop news and events written by myself and a coworker.  I uploaded out first post today on Moon Writing, one of the earliest systems of printing for the blind, and the incredible 60 volume Bible that was published in Moon script.  We also have a new Twitter feed. It’s all very exciting and I hope you enjoy reading it.

In Which I Divulge My Place of Employment

One of the best places to find birds is the genre known as bestiaries, compilations of animal lore that originated in ancient Greece and were later combined with Christian allegories.  The images below are from the Aberdeen Bestiary; sorry about the low quality scans, but I couldn’t find any other complete bestiaries online.  The Aberdeen Bestiary is one of the finest of its type, made in England around 1200.

In one of the opening illustrations God creates the fish and birds.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth under the firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day’ (Genesis 1:20-23).

The next image illustrates the chapter on the fox, the false teacher who lures good Christians (the birds) into heresy:

The word vulpis, fox, is, so to say, volupis. For it is fleet-footed and never runs in a straight line but twists and turns. It is a clever, crafty animal. When it is hungry and can find nothing to eat, it rolls itself in red earth so that it seems to be stained with blood, lies on the ground and holds it breath, so that it seems scarcely alive. When birds see that it is not breathing, that it is flecked with blood and that its tongue is sticking out of its mouth, they think that it is dead and descend to perch on it. Thus it seizes them and devours them. The Devil is of a similar nature. For to all who live by the flesh he represents himself as dead until he has them in his gullet and punishes them. But to spiritual men, living in the faith, he is truly dead and reduced to nothing. Those who wish to do the Devil’s work will die, as the apostle says: ‘For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’ (Romans, 8:13) And David says: ‘They shall go into the lower parts of the earth: they shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.’ (Psalms, 63:9-10)

The hoopoe represents the ideal parent-child relationship:

When the bird called the hoopoe sees that its parents have grown old and that their eyes are dim, it plucks out their old plumage and licks their eyes and keeps them warm, and its parents’ life is renewed. It as if the hoopoe said to them: ‘Just as you took pains in feeding me, I will do likewise for you.’

If birds, who lack reason, do as much for each other, how much more should men, who have the power of reason, support their parents in return; because the law says: ‘And he that curses his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death’ (Exodus, 21:17); it is as if he were guilty of parricide or matricide.

The heron:

It is called heron, ardea, as if from ardua, meaning ‘high’, because of its capacity to fly high in the sky; it fears rain and flies above the clouds to avoid experiencing the storms they bring. A heron taking wing shows a storm is coming.

Many people call the heron Tantalus, after the king who betrayed the secrets of the gods. Rabanus says on this subject: ‘This bird can signify the souls of the elect, who fear the disorder of this world, lest they be caught up by chance in the storms of persecution stirred up by the Devil, and raise their minds, reaching above all worldly things to the tranquility of their home in heaven, where the countenance of God is forever to be seen.

Today we associate owls with wisdom, but they had completely different connotations for medieval people:

Isidore says of the owl: ‘The name owl, bubo, is formed from the sound it makes. It is a bird associated with the dead, weighed down, indeed, with its plumage, but forever hindered, too, by the weight of its slothfulness. It lives day and night around burial places and is always found in caves.’

On this subject Rabanus says: ‘The owl signifies those who have given themselves up to the darkness of sin and those who flee from the light of righteousness.’ As a result it is classed among the unclean creatures in Leviticus (see 11:16). Consequently, we can take the owl to mean any kind of sinner.

Many of the bestiary birds were based on real creatures and their actual behaviors, others were purely mythical.  Probably the most well-known is the phoenix:

It lives for upwards of five hundred years, and when it observes that it has grown old, it erects a funeral pyre for itself from small branches of aromatic plants, and having turned to face the rays of the sun, beating its wings, it deliberately fans the flames for itself and is consumed in the fire.  But on the ninth day after that, the bird rises from its own ashes.

Our Lord Jesus Christ displays the features of this bird, saying: ‘I have the power to lay down my life and to take it again’ (see John, 10:18). If, therefore, the phoenix has the power to destroy and revive itself, why do fools grow angry at the word of God, who is the true son of God, who says: ‘I have the power to lay down my life and to take it again’?

Birds also appear in the Bible itself, such as the raven and dove released by Noah after the flood.  Depicted here in Yates Thompson 13, a 14th-century book of hours made in England.

To be honest, I have no idea what is happening in the illumination below, from the Macclesfield Psalter.  It looks like a king and his adviser, probably David, who was believed to be the author of the Psalms.  But what is the bird doing there?  Is it just a bit of marginalia or is it integral to the story of the two figures?  You can see the full image here, folio 161 (verso).

One of the most common Christian birds was the eagle that represented the Gospel of John the Evangelist  John was thought to have received his inspiration directly from God, much as the eagle flies to the heavens.  From the Aberdeen Bestiary’s eagle chapter:

The word ‘eagle’ represents the acute understanding of the saints. The same prophet, Ezekiel, when he described how he had seen the four evangelists in the form of animals, saw the fourth among them, that is, the one signifying John, as an eagle, which left the earth in flight; as John, on earth, penetrated the mysteries with his acute understanding by reflecting on the word. Likewise, those who still leave behind their earthly mind, seek heavenly things, as the eagle with John, through contemplation.

An evangelist symbol appears in each corner of this illumination from Yates Thompson 13: clockwise from top left, Matthew (the man/angel), John (eagle), Matthew (bull), Mark (lion).  In the center is the Trinity, God the Father, Christ on the Cross, and between them the dove of the Holy Spirit.

Probably the most well-known of all medieval evangelist leaves, that in the magnificent Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin, MS 58).  John’s eagle is on the lower right, apparently clasping the gospel book in its talons.

The opening page of the Gospel of John from the equally spectacular Lindisfarne Gospels, made by Northumbrian monks during the early 8th century.  Interestingly, John sits with a scroll while the eagle carries a codex.

In many cases the eagle is depicted assisting John by holding his pen case and ink bottle, as in the two illuminations below.  The first is from a late 15th century French book of hours at the University of Texas at Austin, HRC 006.  And don’t forget that the pen itself came from a bird, the pinna, or primary flight feather, was used to make quills.

15-century French book of hours.  Columbia University Rare Book Library BP.096.

Doves are one of the oldest Christian symbols, with roots in the imagery of Judaism and other ancient cultures.  Representing the Holy Spirit, they appear in many episodes of the life of Christ found in manuscripts.  I particularly like the Annunciation, not least because Mary is frequently depicted reading.  Below, Mary and the angel in a 15th-century French book of hours, University of Texas at Austin HRC 006.  Of all the images in today’s post, this is my favorite.

Below, the Annunciation as depicted in a 13th-century French copy of The Golden Legend, a popular medieval book on the lives of various saints.  I love that it looks like the dove is whispering the news in the Virgin’s ear, or maybe it’s just about to crash into her like a plate-glass window.  Huntington Library HM 3027.

Three of the Gospel writers describe the Holy Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove at the Baptism of Christ.

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.  But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?  And Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him.  And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  (Matthew 3:13-17)

German antiphonary dated to 1350, Free Library of Philadelphia Lewis E M 042:11.

Late 13-century French psalter.  Free Library of Philadelphia Widener 009.

13th-century Italian antiphonary.  Free Library of Philadelphia Lewis E M 026:20-29.

Finally, the dove appears in images of the Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and the Virgin following the Resurrection.  I find these images odd, as the Biblical story tells of “tongues of fire” appearing over each person.

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them (Acts 2:1-4)

Is there a reason why the dove was substituted for fire so often?  Perhaps to maintain symbolic continuity throughout the cycle of illuminations?  The image below is from the Free Library of Philadelphia Widener 009.

Huntington Library HM 3027.

University of Texas at Austin HRC 006.

Below, the dove appears in an illustration of the Trinity.  Late 15th or early 16th-century book of hours made in Flanders for an English patron, now at the Bodleian Library.

Birds II

The poem, denied a license for publication in the first edition, was printed first in an anthology in 1654 before taking its place alongside his other works in 1669.  Visit Texas A&M’s Digital Donne website to see the entire text, as well as other early Donne books and manuscripts.

None of Donne’s poetry was printed before his death in 1631, but pieces such as this one did circulate widely in manuscript.  You can read more about that, and see some manuscript examples, in a fascinating short essay at the Folger Library: John Donne’s “To His Mistress Going to bed” As an Open Source.

Elegy XIX: To his Mistress going to bed

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defie,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heavens Zone glittering,
But a far fairer world incompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th’ eyes of busie fooles may be stopt there.
Unlace your self, for that harmonious chyme,
Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envie,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off, such beautious state reveals,
As when through flowry meads th’hills shadows steales.
Off with that wyerie Coronet and shew
The haiery Diadem which on your head doth grow:
Now off with those shooes, and then softly tread
In this loves hallow’d temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes, heaven’s Angels us’d to be
Reveal’d to men: thou Angel bringst with thee
A heaven like Mahomets Paradice, and though
Ill spirits walk in white; we easly know,
By this these Angels from an evil sprite,
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
Licence my roaving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below,
O my America! my new-found-land,
My Kingdom’s safest, when with one man man’d.
My Myne of precious stones: My Emperie,
How am I blest in thus discovering thee?
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be,
Full nakedness! All joyes are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,
To taste whole joyes. Jems which you women use
Are like Atlanta’s ball: cast in mens views,
That when a fools eye lighteth on a Jem,
His earthly soul may court that, not them:
Like pictures or like books gay coverings made,
For lay-men are all women thus arrayed.
Themselves are only mystick books, which we,
(Whom their imputed grace will dignifie)
Must see revealed. Then since that I may know;
As liberally, as to thy Midwife shew
Thy self: cast all, yea, this white lynnen hence
There is no pennance due to innocence:
To teach thee I am naked first, why than
What needst thou have more covering then a man.

Themselves are only mystic books

Our first examples come from Huntington Library HM 65, a copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest made in southern France in 1279.  This is an astronomical text, so the birds and other animals in the margins are purely decorative.  Like acanthus leaves and running hares, these birds are a familiar visual trope of the period.  Out of all the medieval birds they’re probably my favorites.

Sometimes birds illuminations aren’t just decorative but refer to the text.  Harvard University’s Houghton Library MS Typ 0446 is a 13th-century Latin Bible.  On one page we see a decorative bird perched on an illuminated initial, but in Exodus a stork appears with a frog in its beak—a reference to the plague of frogs.

Birds also grace the bindings of books.  These clasps date from 14th-century Germany.  Columbia University X242.1.S.

Bird in a blind stamped binding, bound between 1510 and 1519 by a Dutch binder named John Reynes who was active in London.  Huntington Library HM 36336.

The margins of manuscripts were a kind of no-man’s land where artists could explore subversive fears and fantasies.  The creepier aspects of birds are apparent in these grotesques from the pages of a 16th-century Dominican gradual.  University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center HRC 013.

But manuscript birds were just as likely to have a humorous character.  The Macclesfield Psalter, for instance, depicts a man riding a ‘hobby duck’.

A charming bird sneaks a bite from a penwork initial, from the University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library MS 12.  You are what you eat, after all.

Birds were also common as heraldic devices and symbols of authority.  This lovely 13th-century wax seal featuring a bird on a branch is affixed to a “Quit claim by Gwenllian, widow of Madoc ap Seycil to the monks of Abbey Dore of her widow’s third of the 4 1/2 bovates of land on Grosmont hill which Madoc gave to them for his burial for her soul and the soul of Madoc.”  Lawrence, University of Kanses, Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS 191:13.

The Luttrell Psalter is famous for its idealized depiction of English manor life.  Here a peasant feed chickens and a man uses a slingshot to drive crows from the newly tilled fields.  In this case the birds are a significant part of the manuscript’s meta-narrative: depicting its patron Geoffrey Luttrell as a benevolent and pious lord presiding over a bountiful estate.

Another way that birds embodied power and status was via falconry scenes — depictions of the nobility engaging in one of their favorite pastimes.  You could argue that owning a falcon was the medieval equivalent of driving a super car or owning a yacht, and wealthy book patrons would have enjoyed seeing this high status activity reflected in the pages of the luxury texts they commissioned.   Below is the illumination for the month of May from the Fecamp Psalter, created in France circa 1180.

Ptolemy with a falcon, from Der Naturen Bloeme, a 14th-century Flemish bestiary, KB KA 16.

Two examples of falconry from British Library Yates Thompson 13, a 14th-century English book of hours: the first is part of a calander page for the month of May.

Birds part I

What I have been doing is: finishing my dissertation, which was due in September, finding employment, visiting home for a few weeks, starting my new job at an antiquarian bookshop in London, finding a flat, graduating, sending in my visa application, and generally sorting things out.  As well as enjoying the absence of academic deadlines, though I’m already exploring options for starting a PhD in book history.

So a stressful transitional period is ending and I’m ready to think about writing again.  But I wanted to take a second and thank everyone who’s been reading the blog for the past few years, linking to my posts, and providing feedback and information.  It’s really incredible to be part of this tightly-knit biblioblogosphere, and I wish I could meet more of you in person.

Special thanks also goes to those who helped with my job hunt, particularly the people who went out of their way to assist me in person; all the advice and emotional support has truly meant a great deal to me.  I feel incredibly lucky to not only have a job, but one that I enjoy and consider a real career.  If you know me well you will understand how very strange it is when I say that that I’m eager to get out of bed in the morning.

So yeah, thanks everybody, and back to regularly scheduled posting.

Blurry graduation at Senate House.

Still Alive

Vade mecum were carried by variety of professions, especially the mendicant religious orders, and not all included medical information.  Though the Welcome and UCLA examples below include medical diagrams, some of the others seem to be purely calendrical in nature.

Wellcome MS 40

This example was made in the late fifteenth-century.  Here we see the outer appearance of the vade mecum, including the folded pieces of parchment that make up the booklet and the two individual pieces that cover the front and back as a form of loose binding.

A calendar page fully opened from the front and displaying two months.  You can see the four folds that create the booklet – one horizontal and three vertical.  At the bottom the binding is visible.

A calendar page fully opened from the back.  On the lower half is the table of contents listing the three months written on this page.  When folded, the calendars are hidden and only the table of contents is visible while flipping through the almanac.

A zodiac man, with descriptions of each sign.

A phlebotomy, or bloodletting, man, showing the points to cut, as well as astrological charts.

Berkeley Huntington Library HM 47641 (please see correction in the comments below.  Thanks Justin!)

This example, from the Huntington Library at Berkeley, is unusual in that it has a brass cover.  It’s possible that other vade mecum had similar covers of metal or leather which have been lost.

The Berkeley manuscript opened – this liturgical calender has a different, and less commonly seen, orientation than the Welcome manuscript above.

Royal Observatory Edinburgh (scroll down)

This is a great photo, showing exactly how the booklets were opened and consulted.

Schoyen Collection (see MS 1581 and MS 2913)

MS in Norwegian and Latin on vellum, Uvdal, Norway, 1636, 30 ff. (complete), 5,5×5,5 cm, single column, (5×5 cm), 15 lines in capitals, Norwegian Gothic cursive script and a variant of Roman numbers, 80 miniatures of saints or their symbols, 12 circular diagrams, 12 miniatures of the occupations of the months, all in full colours; the book flattens out into a long strip, 67×11 cm, each section cut and folded around each month.

Binding: Norway, 1636, not bound but plied together to form a book, in its original girdle type leather covered wooden box.

Context: Very similar to 2 Norwegian girdle calendars dated 1558: the Hegra Calendar in Trondheim, Det Kgl. Norske Videnskabers Selskabs Bibliotek, and the Oslo Calendar, cf. MS 1581. Layout and illustrations are nearly identical, but the two earlier calendars are rather crudely executed compared to the present one.

This Norwegian almanac is very interesting in that it was created in 1636, long after the establishment of printing throughout Europe.  It would be interesting to learn more about manuscript calender production in this period, and why this format might have been chosen over printed calenders in this region.

More examples from the Bodleian Library and UCLA:

Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 939

Bodleian MS Ashmole 8

Bodleian Canon. Liturg. 237

Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 28

UCLA MS Rosenbach 1004/29 – Two medical images – a bloodletting man and a urine wheel (used to diagnose based on the color and texture of a patient’s urine).

Vade Mecum

By this time printing has spread across Europe and the structure of the wooden press and the workflow of the printing house are well established.  On the left of the woodcut sits the compositor, filling his tray with letters from the case.  Beside him, resting on the bench, is the forme which holds the type tightly together during printing; this one looks like it holds two pages, making a folio-sized book.  The page sticking up is the copy that he works from.

In the middle are the two pressmen, one waving an ink ball.  These were made of treated, stuffed leather and the inker worked with one in each hand to spread the special, greasy ink on the assembled type.  The third man would have operated the press itself, pulling on the wooden bar to lower the heavy platen, squeezing the paper onto the inked forme.  The detail here is very good—the large wooden screw in the top of the press is clear and the press stone, which holds the forme and slides in and out for easy access, is visible.  The press is also accurately shown as being stabilized via beams attached to the ceiling.  The image on the right is a stationer’s shop, which were sometime attached to printing houses.

On a side note, one has to feel for the poor inker: with his colleagues dead and work at a standstill he’s loosing a day’s wages.  No wonder he’s yelling.

Of course, printing hadn’t been invented when the Danse macabre became popular in the late fourteenth century.  The inclusion of new technology into an old illustrative tradition shows that book designers were innovative even when copying older manuscript forms.  And I imagine that it was a fun bit of self-referential black humor to the printers, known for being a bawdy, jovial lot.

This wasn’t the last time death would appear allegorically in the printing house.  The illustration below is from a Danse macabre published at Lyons in 1568, nearly seventy years later, though the date of the woodcut itself is uncertain as they were often reused.  It’s a copy of the 1499 image, and though this artist was less talented, he seems to have been as familiar with the print shop as was his predecessor.  He has included details that are unclear or not visible in the older woodcut, such as the second ink ball, the platen, and the forme on the press stone; and he’s made the halfway finished forme next to the compositor four-pages (quarto-sized) rather than copying the two-page forme above.

Just a note:  The 1499 woodcut is very well-known, but I discovered the second through a short article titled ‘An Early Picture of a Printing Press’ by William M. Ivins in the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 19, 1924.

Death and the Press

I’m in the process of looking through all these, but I’m especially intrigued by this one.  Can you guess who’s making an unauthorized celebrity cameo?  It’s Vesalius’s head on that body, copied from his full-page portrait in the Fabrica.  Right next to an organ (on the right) taken from the same book.  Vesalius spent a great deal of energy, even prior to publication, in trying to forestall the plagiarism of his work.  I doubt, though, that even he imagined his own head would end up on a perpetually-being-dissected body.  One has to wonder about the motives of the artist—an ironic joke at the great dissector’s expense?

Here’s the original portrait for comparison:

Irony

Tweets from Beyond the Grave