Posts by Pablo Alvarez

This blog post features an extraordinary well-preserved copy of what is perhaps one of the earliest extant drawing manuals that were published in Western Europe in the first half of the seventeenth century. Its author is Odoardo Fialetti, an Italian artist whose professional life flourished in Venice at the end of the sixteenth century; Fialetti had access to Tintoretto’s workshop, eventually becoming an accomplished copperplate engraver. While more than 200 engravings are attributed to him, Fialetti is best known for the illustrations he created for his two drawing manuals published in Venice in 1608 and 1609. Indeed, these two manuals became extremely popular among young artists, having a considerable impact on subsequent European manuals of this type published throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In a few words, a drawing manual consisted of a collection of images of the human body that served as models for young apprentices; these illustrations represented the body in full or in sections, and were arranged in increasing difficulty. Essentially, these manuals were self-taught guides and, since they were meant to be heavily used as opposed to be shelved merely for reference, currently they are rarely found at libraries, museums, or private collections.

Join us today for our December Special Collections After Hours open house! You are all invited to explore a great variety of early printed books containing illustrations of the human body that reflect the science of dissection as well as the latest artistic theories in early modern Europe. The display will include richly illustrated treatises by well-known authors such as Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius. Refreshments.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Location: Special Collections Research Center. Hatcher Library Room 660D

I recently came across this sixteenth-century introductory manual designed to teach Christian biblical scholars how to read and understand works in Hebrew and other Oriental languages without punctuation and stress marks. But what makes our copy remarkable is that the names of well-known Protestant scholars, and other infidels, have been carefully crossed out, that is, expurgated, following the Inquisition's recommendations to censor authors considered heretical according to the teachings of the Church of Rome.

When searching for manuscripts of Hrabanus Maurus' medieval encyclopedia De rerum naturis (On the Natures of Things) in the database Digital Scriptorium, I came across a leaf fragment held at Columbia University Libraries (Plimpton MS 128 ) which, in terms of its handwriting and style of illumination, was clearly connected to a leaf fragment held at the University of Michigan Library (Mich. Ms. f. 14).

According to Giorgio Vasari’s biographies, The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors, Leonardo da Vinci died on May 2, 1519. As museums around the world are commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo with various exhibits, we would like to join the celebrations of Leonardo’s legacy by highlighting our copies of some early printed editions of his Trattato della Pittura (Treatise on Painting).

On behalf of the University of Michigan Library we want to express our most sincere gratitude to Marty and Marilyn Lindenauer for their generous donation that allowed us to acquire a series of books and artifacts for our History of Medicine Collection.

We are pleased to announce the launching of our most recent Omeka exhibit: Marks in Books. In this online exhibit, the term "marks" refers to physical elements that have been added to manuscripts and early printed books throughout time, that is, from the instance when they were being made until they arrived to our shelves. Mostly, these marks were not intended by the authors, scribes and printers as they originally envisioned their books, but were later included in the form of corrections, readers' marginalia, drawings, and traces of subsequent ownerships as shown in bookplates and bindings. These marks are extraordinary witnesses offering unique information on various aspects of book history such as production, textual transmission, reception, and provenance history.

You are invited to see highlights from the library's extraordinary collection of manuscripts and early printed books describing the early history of astrology and astronomy. Mark your calendars for this Tuesday (3/12/19; 4:00-7:00 pm). The selection will range from ancient papyri to richly illustrated books that made possible the scientific revolution in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including first editions of the works of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.

When cataloging this fifteenth-century Italian manuscript, I saw that some of the pages have been damaged by brushing a chemical reagent on some areas that were difficult to read. While in the short term this substance was designed to make traces of ink more legible, the long-term impact on the manuscript is disastrous as shown in the image below.

This 1799 edition of The Images of Saints from the family of the Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519) contains for the very first time an almost complete series of the woodcuts that were originally commissioned by Maximilian I to illustrate the legends, history and genealogy of earlier saints claimed to be connected to the House of Habsburg.