- Browse Repository
- Case Western Reserve University Special Collections
- Kelvin Smith Library
- Manuscript Collections
- The Otto F. Ege Collection
- Original Leaves from Famous Books
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Show moreCaption: "Desiderius Erasmus' travels and writings made him the great international humanist of his day. To a profound and extensive learning Erasmus joined a refined taste and a delicate wit. He was an extraordinary linguist, a textual scholar, and a fine Latin stylist, and therefore was able to render invaluable service to the great printers of his day, Aldus and Venice and Froben of Basle. Although he was favorably impressed with the Reformation he remained with the Catholic church, hopping to correct some of it's fault. With this in mind he wrote Adages, a collection of Latin phrases and allusions designed to polish and enrich the sermons of the priests, and more significantly to illustrate the fusion of Christianity and Humanism. After the invention of printing, Erasmus was probably the first author who profited by the opportunity for wide circulation, 3200 copies for the Adages, which was in his day even more popular than the now famous Praise of Folly. The first issue of the Adages, a small volume was hastily prepared, was printed by Aldus in the year 1500, while Erasmus was in Paris and apparently in need for money. In 1520, it was reprinted by Aldus ? son, Paul, but issued as the work of a certain "certain Hollander," because of the increasing hostility of the church against Erasmus. This edition of the Adages was nearly finished when Erasmus' friend, the famous printer and scholar of Basle, John Froben, died. "A truer friend that Forben I could not wish from the gods," Erasmus said of this generous patron. This work was completed by Forben's son, Jerome."
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more"Francis Bacon presents a paradox. He is celebrated by many as the earliest thinker to grasp the implication of the scientific method. Bacon nevertheless rejected the most celebrated scientific discoveries of his own time and opposed the Copernican system with particular severity. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, remarked that Bacon wrote science more like a Lord Chancellor than a scientist. Bacon, however, persistently attacked scholasticism, for he wished to deliver the world from Aristotelianism, and did much with his persuasive writing to substitute for it the inductive method. The De Augmentis Scientiarum is an expansion of Bacon's earlier work, The Advancement of Learning, first published in 1605. It was part of a tremendous project, The Great Renewal, which was left far from complete. In the preface Bacon wrote, "I have propounded my opinion, naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccupate the liberty of men's judgment by confutations." The New Atlantis,written in 1627 is a scientific Utopia; the central establishment was the so-called House of Solomon, the laboratory of co-operating scientists honored above all other men. In Wisdom of the Ancients, he tries to explain ancient fables by ingenious allegories. Bacon polished all his prose sentences until they reached a "shining beauty that was most poetic." His purpose was "teaching men to think more wisely" and his motto was, "discriminate". This work was printed by John Haviland. The title page was composed in Latin to conform with the text. Restrictions on book printing were so stringent at this time that the period has been called the darkest in the history of English printing". (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "In the year 1540, at the age of twenty-five, Andreas Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy, planned this work on anatomy, generally known as the Fabrica from the title De Humani Corporis. This title was given this study because Vesalius considered "the human body a perfect fabric conceived by the creator and achieved by the supreme artist, Nature." "Here are collected," states Dr. Arturo Castiglioni, "the experiences of a teacher who understands the necessity of performing dissections accurately, not according to classical books, but according to critical observations and individual findings." Vesalius, the gallant fighter, courageously attacked the scholastic doctrines from the time of Galen to his own teacher, Sylvius. After this book was issued, a physician no longer had to be a philosopher, able to discuss health and disease in syllogistic form and with the help of classic quotations. Vesalius, enlisted the service of Titian's brilliant pupil Stephen van Calcar, also an ardent anatomist. Calcar's illustrations are the finest that have appeared in any medical book and have only been excelled by the anatomical drawings od Leonardo da Vinci. The delightful woodcuts initials, with the animated putti, in a subtle way supplement the anatomic plates. These initials are also supposed to have been designed by the celebrated Calcar. The printer Johannes Oporinus, who assumed this Latin name from the German "Herbst," was one of the most brilliant scholars of his time. His folio editions of the Fabrica, (the first issued in 1543, and this second edition in 1555); are master pieces of printing. The second edition, printed in a larger font of Garamond type, with added illustrations, is considered as finer issue of "one of the greatest book of Renaissance" for the text as well as format."
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more"The greatest of the English epics is Beowulf, written shortly after the year 700, probably by a monk in a Northumbrian monastery. The subject matter is an accumulation of centuries of pagan and Christian legends. These are given local and contemporary color by the description of many of the eight century social manners. This epic has great pictorial power, stately speeches, momentous action and the portrait of the idealized King. Beowulf, the mildest, kindest, and most beloved of men, makes this long poem one of the most important heritages from our Teutonic ancestors. The reflections of the author show a Christian point of view, while the descriptions of the ceremonies are pagan. The original text, mutilated and incomplete, written in a most archaic English, was a challenge to the translator, William Morris. "To Morris, the story,' so writes H. Holliday Sparling, 'or what remains of it, was intelligible and interesting, but not even he could render it in terms that are intelligible to any but a highly trained reader." (Ege, Otto F.) Beowulf was "done out" of the Old English by William Morris, assisted by A.J. Wyatt, in 1894. In 1895, it was issued as the thirty-second publication of the Kelmscott Press, founded in 1891 by Morris. The type is the "Troy", Morris' second type of design of which he wrote, "... herein the task I set myself was to redeem the Gothic character from the charge of unreadableness... I think I may claim (the "Troy") to be as readable as a roman". The Kelmscott volumes generally are regarded more as objects of art than readable books. Nevertheless, Morris' ideals did more to raise the standard of printing in many countries and to encourage individual expression than the work of any other printer who preceded him". (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "The Books of Hours, the outcome of changes in the society in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are the best known as well as the most artistic of all the theological volumes of the Middle Ages. With the general acceptance of the Christianity throughout Europe by the year 1300, a general prayer book for the wealthy laity was needed, and these Books of Hours, Horae, Offices, or Hours of the Virgin, as they are called, filled that they want. In general, they contain sixteen sections, including the calendar, with the Saint Days; the Gospels of the Nativity ; the eight hours of the virgin, the most important part; and the Service of the Dead. The Books of the Hours were deemed so essential a means of salvation and of obtaining indulgences that it is probable that there were few families of wealth or nobility who did not posses a copy. Emperors, dukes and merchant princes frequently ordered richly illuminated and illustrated copies as betrothal gifts. Pilgrims usually returned home from their journey to a shrine with as fine a copy as they could afford. Books of Hours were usually produced in the medieval scriptoriums with the patience engendered in a sheltered life and the skill fostered by religious devotion. All materials used, parchment, ink, colors, and quills, were prepared within monastic walls. The monastic book hands (or styles of writing), for long periods of time, were crystallized, so it is possible to allocate an example to a particular country and century, even when there is no mention in the text as to where the book was written." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "This Chronycle of Englande with the "fruyte of times," a compilation of the chronicles of Nennius, Douglas of Glastonbury, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, begin with the creating of the world and ends in the region of Henry VI. It is also know as the Chronicle of Brute, so-called from the opening chapter dealing with the story of Albina and her twenty-eight sisters, daughters of a king in Greece, who discovered Britain and called it Albion. They consorted with Incumbi and bore a race of giants which held the island until the coming of Brut, the grandson of Aeneas, who became the first king of Britain. Two pages tell us "how Kynge Lear was driven out of his londe through his folks, and how Cordeill his youngest doughter help hyme in his need." This story was accepted as authentic until the seventeenth century. The Chronycle also introduces us to the immortal King Arthur, and to Lancelot, Tristan and Perceval. The work was publicly read at the court of the Norman Kings so as to inspire the young squires with emulation. Fair ladies recited it at the bedside of wounded knights to assuage their pain. Julian Notary, who printed from the year 1498 until his death in 1520, is considered as one of the four most important early printers in England, taking his place with Caxton, De Worde, and Pynson, and this edition of the Chronycle is one of the most important issues from his press."
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "Thomas Aquinas, born 1227, entered a Dominican monastery but was soon released from his vows and sent to Cologne to attend the lectures of Albertus Magnus. Here this taciturnity, as well as his overweight, made him known among the students as the "great dumb ox of Sicily." His teachers, however, added, "This ox will one day fill the world with his bellowings". His first great book was this Book of Sentences, a commentary on the work of Peter Lombard, which closely followed the original but is ten times as extensive with ratiocinations and distinctions, thus producing a maze of new shades and thoughts. Aquinas great contribution was the reconciliation of reason with revelation, the natural with the supernatural, as the Greek philosophy, at it?s highest point, established the relation of continuity between the spiritual and the material. This Book of Sentences was universally used as a textbook until the end of the Middle Ages and was the inspiration for thousands of doctor?s dissertations. Vaughan, in a recent biography, states that Thomas Aquinas "was a man endowed with the characteristics notes of the three great Fathers of Greek Philosophy. He possessed the intellectual honesty and precision of Socrates, the analytical keenness of Aristotle and the yearning after wisdom which was the distinguishing mark of Plato". This fine book-hand was a revival of the characters used in the scriptoriums founded by Charlemagne around the year 800 and became the inspiration for the first roman type of the fifteenth century printers." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more"Boccaccio, Dante and Petrarch are the triumvirate who in the brilliant fourteenth century, ushered in the Renaissance and founded modern literature. "Boccaccio" to quote Symonds, "was the first to substitute a literature of the people for the literature of the learned classes and the aristocracy,... he delineated the world as he found it". The hundred stories in The Decameron are told by seven young ladies and three-gentlemen while taking refuge from a plague which raged in Florence in the year 1348. They are enclosed in a clever framework. On each of ten successive days, one of the story tellers is appointed king or queen, and under his or her direction each member contributes his narrative, one frequently suggesting the next. These stories in The Decameron, written between the years 1348-1358, cover every phase of human life- the pathetic, the humorous, the base and the noble. Certain of the stories were later retold by Chaucer, other by Lessing, Longfellow and Tennyson. Many other writers come under the spell of Boccaccio, the consummate narrator. The Ashendene Press, perhaps the greatest private press of all time, was founded in 1894 by St. John Hornby and occupied the leisure time of this busy man for forty years. It followed a middle course between the decorative magnificence of Morris' Kelmscott Press and the classic severity of Cobden Sanderson's Doves Press. The type used in this work is "Subiaco" and is based on the type face used by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Subiaco, Italy, in 1465. This large folio, which was in process of printing for seven years, is considered one of the great achievements of the Ashendene Press." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more"In the year 1748, Dodsley, the best known publisher of London, and six other bookseller paid Samuel Johnson a sum of ?1575 to compile a Dictionary of the English Language. This sum emboldened Johnson to move from his squalid quarters in the Strand to a pretentious house on Gough Square, in London, where he and five or six amanuenses labored for seven years, instead of three as first planned. Johnson's method was to read incessantly the best authors and to underscore the illustrative quotations he wished used and then to give them to his assistants to insert in their proper places. The general excellence of the definitions, the judicious selection of quotations, the etymologies, though often faulty, make the Dictionary useful and entertaining reading today. "Pension, an allowance made to anyone without an equivalence. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country". "Lexicographer" Johnson defined as "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people". Johnson in the preface reveals much of himself. "... In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed;...that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great, not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but in midst of inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow..." The work was printed by W. Strahan and seen through the press by Andrew Millar, one of the underwriting publishers. The underwriters received excellent returns on their original investment as edition after edition issued from the presses." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "Dante Alighieri, the supreme exponent of the Middle Ages, is, according to Ruskin, "the central of all the world as representing in perfect balance the imaginative, moral and intellectual faculties, all at their highest." Dante's great work, the Divine Comedy, is an original creation. It is explained in his own words: "The subject of the whole work, taken literally, is the state of souls after death, regarded as fact. Taken allegorically, its subject is man, insofar as by merit or demerit, in the exercise of free will, he is exposed to the reward or punishment of justice." In the narrative of his journey, which was inspired by a vision in 1300, Dante is accompanied by two guides, "Virgil, who stands for human reasons,... And Beatrice, who symbolizes divine grace." Virgil cannot lead the poet beyond Purgatory, while Beatrice lifts him through the spheres of Paradise by contemplation. The last line symbolizes the new "love which moves the sun and other stars." The magnitude of Dante's conception is no more wonderful than the composition and form in which he expressed it with metrical virtuosity through the hundred cantos. The lasting popularity of the work is evident from the vast critical literature that has been written concerning this work. This edition of Commedia, printed in Venice, 1491, by Petrus de Piasio of Cremona, is one of the best known of all the numerous fifteenth century editions. For several years, (1480-4183), de Piasio was in partnership with A. Torresanus, into whose hand the equipment of Jenson had fallen after the latter's death." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more"Miguel de Cervantes, poet, novelist, and dramatist, was endowed with a rich imagination, keen wit, penetrating intellect and great knowledge of life and mankind. Poverty had forced him to enlist in war service against the Turks and African Corsairs. He has captured and enslaved for seven years before being ransomed. These experiences seemed to strengthen the natural faculties of Cervantes. In 1605, when the author was fifty-eight years of the age, the first part of Don Quixote, the work that immortalized his name, appeared. Havelock Ellis in his easy on Don Quixote writes, "It leads into an atmosphere in which the ideal and the real are at home. It blends together the gravest and gayest things in the world... It is a story that a child may enjoy a tragic comedy that only the wisest can understand... It has entered into the lives of the people of every civilized land; it has become part of our human civilization". Don Quixote, 'the most cosmopolitan, the most universal of books', has six-hundred and sixty-seven other personages in addition to the two famous characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Not one of them is a villain. It is a coincidence that a Shakespeare's King Lear appeared the same year as Cervantes' Don Quixote- and that both these authors died on the same day in 1615. This third Madrid edition, printed in 1608 by Juan de la Cuesta, is a known as the first "Academic" edition since the Madrid Academy considered it of great textual importance. Printing was at a ebb at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Margaret Stillwell, commenting on this facts, adds, "If Cervantes had been born when the Spanish states were in ascendency, who knows what stunning format some sixteenth century printer might have produced for Don Quixote!". (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more"Montaigne, the foremost apostle of urbanity and detachment, wrote his Essays between the years 1571 and 1588. In the note "The Author to the Reader", the purpose is clearly stated. "...I desire therein to be delineated in mine owne genuine, simple, and ordinarie fashion...; for it is myselfe I pourtray... Thus, gentle Reader , myselfe am the groundworke of my booke: it is then no reason thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vaine a subject. Therefore Farewell." In these three books of Essays, Montaigne is always asking, "What do I know?" and then in discussions and personal essays he gives us meditations on his wide classical readings, observations of life around him, and revelations of his own whims and habits. Montaigne also shows that he believes in fraternity and the underlying goodness of humanity and he is therefore a leading representative of the French spirit in the Renaissance. The standard English translation is the one used in this edition, made by John Florio in the early part of the seventeenth century. This polyglot scholar, born in Italy, later a teacher of French and Italian at Oxford, made in this translation an English masterpiece and gave us Montaigne, the solitary philosopher, "the best companion in the world". In 1901, Bruce Rogers, "the ideal of all those who have tried to produce books", designed a special font "Montaigne" for this monumental edition of the Essays in attempt to meet a want for a large type face that would avoid the blackness of Morris' types and the thin effect of the ordinary types when used in the larger sizes". The Essays of Montaigne is one of the famous Riverside Limited Editions for which literary selections were determined by the rule that the text should 'allow of an individual style of typographical treatment." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century B.C., had a profound effect on medieval thought. He became "the philosopher" and his word became to be regarded as comparable in weight to the Bible. Papal prohibitions against "reading" the treatises in the universities were disregarded and later withdrawn. Soon an intimate knowledge of Aristotelian writings frequently became the only requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Of these works by one of the world?s greatest thinkers the Nicomachean Ethics has the greatest value to us today and is the most likely to survive. This masterpiece of Greek literature, named after the son of the philosopher to whom it was dedicated, offers logical explanation of all aspects of human behavior. In it Aristotle maintains that the chief human good and the end of life is happiness, (well being), and that this consists in virtuous activity, the highest form of which is contemplation. This manuscript page was written in Erfrut, Germany, in the year 1365 A.D., thirteen years before the great university was founded in that small city. This university of Erfrut was the first in Germany to introduce into its curriculum the study of classic literature and the humanities. The casual and natural cursive writing, done hastily, no doubt by a secular writer, is in sharp contrast to the handsome and leisurely executed book hands we usually find in the work of the monastic scribes." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more";In terse, restrained language, Sir Sidney Lee, in his life of Shakespeare, gives us a fine example of criticism when he writes, 'In knowledge of human character, in wealth of humor, in depth of passion, in fertility of fancy, and in soundness of judgment he has no rival ?.. To Shakespeare the intellect of the world, speaking in diverse accents, applies with one accord his own words: 'How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In apprehension how like a god'. The First Folio, printed in 1623, contained not only all the works previously printed, but also seventeen others, 'all true to original copies,' which no doubt means the manuscript copies in the possession of the company of the players to which Shakespeare belonged. These were edited and seen through the presss by his fellow actors and friends, John Heminge and Henry Condell, 'without ambition either of selfeprofit or fame'. In an epistle, To the Great Variety of Readers, regarding Shakespeare manuscripts, these men say, 'his mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we haue scarce receiued from him a bolt in his papers'. The Second Folio appeared in 1632, the Third Folio, many of which were lost in the great London fire, in 1664. The Fourth Folio, the last, was printed in 1685. In each reprinting, more typographical errors or 'corrections' crept in , due to careless proofreading, or ignorant actorsin their attempt to modernize the lines" (Ege, Otto F.) ";Herringman?s shop, 'The sign of Blue Anchor', was one of the chief lounging places for the literary lights of Restoration London. The paper used for the Folio was the best crown paper available, much better than that used for the printing of Bibles in those days" (Ege, Otto F.) "And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live" (Ben Jonson)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa (1292-1298), composed The Golden Legend with the object to write not a collection of lives and legends of the saints for the learned, but a book of devotion for the common people. The stories tell of the struggle of several hundred saints with the devil, who appears in every possible form, bird, beast, reptile, and particularly woman. The saints always triumph. It became one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages. In the fifteenth century, more than seventy editions were printed in Latin, eight in Italian, fourteen in Dutch, three in English. Caxton wrote of this work, "Forlyke as gold passeth in value all other mettalles, so thys legend exceeded all other books". Luther denounced the work as immoral, and preachers in the Reformation period called the tales "Legends of Iron", for, they said, they were written by "a man with an iron mouth and leaden heart." This particular edition, an incunabulum, was printed in Venice in 1480 by Antonio de Strata of Cremona, who became noted for the textual accuracy of his publications. This renown was due the editing and the proofreading by the great scholar, Vittorio de Pisa. This Golden Legend was the first publication of the de Strata press." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "Herodotus read his immortal History in Athens about 477 B.C. It had won such popular approval from the Athenians that two years later, by a decree, the author was awarded a literary prize of ten talents ($120,000 to $150,000). As a youth, Herodotus apparently had sufficient means to travel for almost twenty years. His insatiable curiosity led him to converse with priests, merchants, farmers in the field, and even women in their spinning wheels. His easy graceful style, together with his delightful stories, won for him the titles of "prince of story-tellers" and "the first great prose writer." The lt;i>Historylt;/i> of Herodotus deals with a Persian wars of invasion. It is divided into nine books. The first six of these are filled with the migration, commerce, arts, and religious beliefs of the Greeks. It is told as a fascinating narrative and is filed with human sympathy, so that there is, even to this day, no complaint of this method of writing, nor of the long introduction. This edition, the first printed in Greek, uses the famous Greek type of Aldus. The characters, with the numerous ligatures and contractions, were based, it is said, on the handwriting of Aldus' friend, the great scholar Musurus. This History was issued as "the book of the month" for September, 1502, by the Aldine Academy, "Neacademia." This was founded in 1500 by Aldus and his many scholar friends. Their ambition was to edit and print one classic every month, in an edition of one thousand copies. George Haven Putman states, "This list of undertakings (by the Academy) is in my judgment by far the greatest and most honorable in the whole history of publishing." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show more"Gerard, a Barber-Surgeon, employed his energies chiefly upon horticulture and for twenty years had a renowned garden in Holborn, the fashionable suburb of London. Gerard's reputation rests on his work Generall Historie of Plants. Most of the 1800 woodcuts used were taken from earlier herbals, but the one illustrating the potato plant is perhaps the first figure of the plant ever issued. We cannot accept Gerard's as that of a scientist, for, as Arber states, his 'account of the "Goose tree"... "tree bearing Geese," removes what little respect one may have for him as a scientist, not indeed because he held and absurd belief, which was widely current at that time, but because he described it, with utter disregard of truth, as confirmed by his own observation'. Gerard states, "But what our eies have seen and hands have touched, we shall declare". He than relates "that trees actually bearing shells, which open and hatch out barnacle geese occur in the northern part of Scotland". Many copies of Gerard's Herbal were treasured in English homes for well over two hundred years- as a guide for folk medicine. The "virtues" of the plants made this the "Home Book of Medicine" for every possible ailment, as "Kings evil", "casting for the dead child", "shortness of breath", "dissolving clotted blood", "cooling the heat of the inward partes", and even "baldness". The printer of this work, John Norton, alderman, Printer to Queen Elizabeth in Latin and Greek, was also the first to establish a press at the college of Eton. Norton had previously commissioned a Dr. Priest to translate into English the great botanical work of Dodoens published in 1583, but Priest died before the work was finished. Gerard adopted Priest's work, re-arranged and completed it, and published it dishonestly as is own." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "Livy's great work, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, covers the period from the foundation of Rome in 753 B.C. to the year 9 B.C. or up to twenty years before his death. In fine oratorical language, Livy expresses his burning desire to inculcate again, in his decadent era, the virtues and patriotism of the earlier great Romans. His "pictured page", with vividness of detail, graphic portrayal of events, "reporting" of fine speeches of his heroes, was the inspiration for the painters and writers of historical themes in the Renaissance. This work of Livy's is still the chief source of knowledge of the period with which it deals. However, it ignores the origin and development of the Roman constitution and shows little interest in military art. By the middle of the fifteenth century, the universities if Italy and the court schools introduced the study of the humanities. To meet the increased demand for more numerous and cheaper copies of the Greek and Roman writers, the secular scribes developed the semi-cursive character of the revived Carolingian handwriting, Shading of the strokes disappeared for the first time in centuries, and the writing developed a slope. Book hands of this type became the model for italic types." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreOdyssey , a sequel, which deals with the marvelous, the romantic and the domestic, was written for women. These works were existent as early as 1000 B.C. and were handed down for several hundred years by public reciters until reduced to writing under Pisistratus (605-527 B.C.). There are many famous translation made by men who were poets in their own right; Chapman 1614, Pope 1725, Bryant 1871, Morris 1887. Prose translations are also numerous, the latest being that of the Odyssey by the famous English soldier T.E. Lawrence. He attempted to instill new vigor into the old story by a striking modernization of the language,an example of the fine art of translation". Odyssey" (Ege, Otto F.).
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less
Show moreCaption: "Justinian's greatest accomplishment was the codification of the Roman law now known as "The Justinian Code." This was done under the direction of Justinian by his principal law officer, Tribonian, assisted by ten learned civilians, between the year 529 and 533 A.D. The formulation of Roman law has often been acclaimed the greatest triumph of the ancient world. Its reorganization and transmission in the Justinian Code was one of the greatest gifts of the Middle Ages to the western world. Roman law established man's rights in regard to his labor and property. It was a useful tool in the struggle between the secular rulers and the potentates of the church. The code stresses the principal of representative government. This, together with the ideas of justice and equality which it embodies, is now part of our American government. Meynial summarizes well the force of the Corpus Juris of Justinian when he writes, "Fourteen hundred years old in its latest recension, eighteen hundred years in the majority of its fragments, it has continued to rule the world through the greatest political and social upheavals ever known, and has outlived by all these long centuries the civilization which gave it birth." Thielman Kerver started printing in Paris in 1497. He was one of the few French printers who continued to print in Gothic manuscript tradition well into the sixteenth century. Kerver was famous for his excellent work in red and black as well as his beautiful designed Books of Hours. After his death in 1522, the press was continued for a quarter of a century longer by his widow, Yolande Bonhomme." (Ege, Otto F.)
Original Leaves from Famous Books
Otto F. Ege Collection
Show less