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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."
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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."
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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.)
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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.)
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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.)
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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.)
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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.)
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Show more"Paulus Jovis, the author of the Lives of illustrious Men, was befriended by Pope Leo X, and made a Bishop by Clement VIII, but because of his scandalous living was retired by Paul III. This work is his most important writing, done in excellent "law style". It consists of nearly two hundred biographical sketches. The contemporary characters selected as candidates for his early "Who's Who" were approached for financial contributions by Jovius almost in the guise of a blackmailer, for "no man ever asked for a present with less reserve than he did". One cardinal presented him with two houses; a villain, for whom Jovius invented a most noble and ancient lineage, gave him a princely gift. For Don Juan III of Portugal, at a price, Jovius added several additional victories. For these he used his "pen of gold", for other who refused his demands he used his "pen of iron". To Jovius, the historian of his age, we are indebted for much information regarding the personal lives of the great who lived in and molded that great half century from 1500 from 1550. In this book we have, in a number of instances, the only surviving portraits of some of these famous people. The finer of these portrait wood engravings are by Tobias Stimmer and Christopher Sichem. The family of Petri is famous in the annals of printing. Andrew, the father of Henri, was formerly associated with Froben, and a relative of Henri had printed a number of works for Luther. Henri himself was knighted by Emperor Rudolf II. Generally, the works of German printers of the late sixteenth century "are discouraging as typographical productions", but these of Petri, using the Roman or "antiqua" letter which condensed italics, give the pages a distinction about equal to that of Estienne in France and the Aldine works in Italy which are produced at the same time" (Ege, Otto F.)
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Show moreCaption: "Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers is a collection of eighty-two sketches, divided into ten books. It is the only extant work of this third century biographer. Although full of anecdotes and highly colored narratives, it is still the chief source of information concerning the history of Greek philosophy and the private lives and habits of the most eminent philosophers of antiquity. There are also many valuable quotations from lost works included in the compilation. This translation of The Lives of the Philosophers was made by the brilliant Ambrogio Traversari, the only great monastic scholar of the Renaissance. Jenson, the most noted of all fifteenth century printers, produced about one hundred and fifty books in about ten years. Updike, in his monumental volumes Printing Types, states, "Jenson's roman type have been accepted models for roman letters ever since he made them, and, repeatedly copied in our day, have never been equaled". Our contemporary types which have been inspired by the Jenson letter include the "Golden" type of William Morris, the "Doves" type of Sir Emery Walker and T.J Cobden Sanderson, and the "Montaigne" and "Centaur" types by Bruce Rogers. Jenson's successor, Herbort, in a broadside, extols the virtues of these types in the following glowing phrases. "(They) ought to ascribe (this design) rather to divine than to human wit... His books do not produce weariness but rather give delight by their exactness and precision; they do not harm one?s eye but rather help them and do them good?, hence our debt to that excellent man, Master Nicolas Jenson, is great indeed"." (Ege, Otto F.)
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Show moreCaption: "The great value of Suctonius' account of the Lives of the Twelve Roman Emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, lies in the information it gives on the manners and customs of that period. This work, written about the year 100 A.D. is a racy biography, filled with anecdotes, gossip and scandal which has "influenced posterity's evaluation of his subjects." As secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, Suetonius no doubt has access to secret sources. He regarded the world with disillusioned eyes after discovering that many "idols had feet of clay." He gave us what he saw. Robert Estienne, in the year 1524, at the age of twenty-one, established his press in Paris. He was the great scholar in a famous family of printers, and a close personal friend, of his patron, Francis I, who gave him the title "Printer to the King." Francis frequently had to come to his friend's rescue when the troublesome theological censors ransacked his home and press. Associated with Estienne was the famous type cutter, Claude Garamond, to whom the italic type used in his book has been attributed. Daniel Berkeley Updike says of his types that they "...have a delightful unconventionality of design, free and spirited, yet noble; full of contrast and movement, yet with elegance and precision of line that marks them as French."
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Show moreCaption: "Under the patronage of Emperor Augustus poetry reached a high level. The three great poets in Augustan Age, 43 B.C. to 14 A.D., were Virgil, Horace and Ovid. The greatest work of Ovid is the longest poem of 11,000 hexameters, Metamorphoses. It is highly imaginative collection of Greek and Gerco-German myths. It sets forth the change of form which people and things had undergone from the creation of world to his day. Julius Caesar changes into a star! Love is the dominant theme in the collection of stories, some great, some trivial. All are written with a cold cynicism, are lively in imagination, and are most ingeniously linked together like the tales of the Arabian Nights. The Metamorphoses has had an immense influence on modern literature. Meres, in praising Shakespeare for his comedies and tragedies, wrote in the year, 1598, "The sweete wittie soul of Ovid liues in mellifluous and honey tongued Shakespeare, witness his Venus and Adonis." The name of the printer, Helizabeth, indicates that the widow of de Rusconibus continued the printshop after her husband's death. The woodcuts, rather primitive, follow the usual custom of having the character indicated by letter or name inside the frame. They also occasionally portray more than one incident in the same setting."
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Show moreCaption: "Pliny the Elder, the busy state official and naval officer, spent his nights and all his spare time in the acquisition of scientific data. He had tracts read to him while he ate and often dictated from his bath. His Natural History appeared about 77 A.D. This digest of over two thousand books is a "great storehouse of misinformation as well as information; legend and magic are intermingled with historical fact and ancient science." The thirty-six books cover such miscellaneous subjects as ancient painting, geography of the Roman Empire, gladiatorial contests, industrial processes, Mediterranean trade, mining in ancient Spain, fluctuation of prices in antiquity, nature of ancient beverages, the pagan attitude towards immortality. This work "was ransacked for more than a thousand years by every important searcher for scientific data." This is the first edition of Pliny edited by the great scholar Erasmus and the first to appear under the title of Historia Mundi instead of Historia Naturalis. It was sumptuously printed by Forben, the noted printer of Basle, who was a friend and patron of Erasmus, the scholar, as well as Holbein, the artist. He established his press in 1491 and continued printing until he died in 1527. In this long period he printed no less than two-hundred and fifty-seven works. Nearly all were large volumes of distinctive importance for scholars. Forben's imprint appears in no book printed in German. Many of the texts which were printed in Latin, Greek or Hebrew were edited and proofread by the printer himself."
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Show moreCaption: "Dr. Hartmann Schedel, the compiler of this Nuremberg Chronicle or Weltchronik, spent more time reading history than practicing medicine. Italian, English, and French chroniclers had treated German history rather slightingly; to correct this condition, Dr. Schedel persuaded two wealthy merchants of Nuremberg, Sebald Schreyder and Sebastian Kamermaister, to underwrite a new chronicle. The book holds great fascination for us, not for its text but for the lavish abundance of woodcuts. Two noted artists, Michael Wolgemut, the master of Albrecht Durer, and his stepson, William Pleydenwurff, were engaged to make the wood-cut illustrations. A total of 1809 pictures, made from 645 blocks, appear in the book with complete disregard for validity. Ninety-six blocks were used to portray 596 portraits, so that the portrait assigned to Nebuchadnezzar earlier appears later as several of the German emperors; the block for the town of Mainz does service also for Naples. The characters with elongated fingers and unkempt hair have been attributed to Wolgemut. The famous printer Anton Koberger, formerly a baker, established his first press about the year 1470, and continued to print and publish for more than fifty years. He employed, at various times, over one hundred workmen on his twenty-four presses as binders, illuminators, and artists. Koberger became the first wholesale printer and publisher. He exchanged his books with other printers over a wide area. The Nuremberg Chronicle was Koberger?s most successful venture. In the year 1493, two editions, one in Latin and one in German, appeared. These editions must have been large ; over a hundred copies are now owned in America, four hundred and fifty years after they were issued." (Ege, Otto F.)
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Show moreCaption: "This work, On Duty, (De Officiis) was addressed to Cicero?s son Marcus in the year 43 B.C. In it Cicero gives his viewpoints on many philosophical and ethical questions which center mainly around the theme borrowed from the Stoics. "Man must be virtuous in order to be happy". Like many wealthy Romans, Cicero had sent his son to study philosophy in Athens under the philosopher Cratippus. From Cicero?s famous letter, we learn that he exchanged books with Cleopatra, who was in Rome when this text was written. We wonder whether she received a copy of the De Officiis and, if she did, whether she read it. Cicero?s diction and style established Latin as a vehicle for great prose. This work has a distinction of being the first classical book that appeared in print. In the year 1469, John of Spire and his brother Wendelin, Germans from Rhenish, Bavaria, were well established and encouraged by the city senate of Venice to establish themselves as the first printers in that city and were given an exclusive five year privilege. When John died the following year from the plague, the senate decided that the grant or "patent" given to the brothers had lapsed. Wendelin, however, continued to print four or five years longer, until competition forced him into bankruptcy. Venice soon became the printing center of Europe; before 1480, more than fifty printing establishment were in operation. Daniel Berkeley Updike states that the two brothers, John and Wendelin, made and used the first truly Roman type. It is also thought by some scholars of printing history that Nicolas Jenson worked for the de Spires in the year 1469. It is possible that he really was the creator of the first type used by this press." (Ege, Otto F.)
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Show more".Virgil was the national poet of Augustan Rome. Under the patronage of rich and powerful Maecenas he was enabled to live the tranquil and secluded life which so well fitted into his own ideals and temperament. In 37 B.C. he finished the Bucolica, which idealizes the farm life which he knew and loved so well in his youth. His second great work was the Georgica, a didactic, realistic poem. Both were written to make farm life in the country so attractive that a migration would start from the city. In the later period Virgil wrote his epic, the Aeneid, to glorify Rome and its rulers. This work bears a close relationship to the writings of Homer. Virgil in these poems assumes the tone of the prophet: 'Rome has equally a mission to fulfill, which is to establish peace and order, and to rule the world through law. ' Virgil excels, in all his writings, in 'that subtle fusion of the music and the meaning of language which touches the deepest and most secret springs of emotion'. His influence on Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth and Tennyson is clearly evident. Dante selected Virgil to represent human wisdom and to act his own guide through the Inferno" (Ege, Otto F.) "In the year 1750, John Baskerville decided to print, as an avocation, '?.books of consequences ?.and which the public may be pleased to see in an elegant dress and to purchase at such a price as will pay the extraordinary care and expense that must necessarily be bestowed upon them'. Seven years later his publication, this 'Virgil', appeared. According to Macaulay, it 'went forth to astonish all the librarians of Europe'. The type of the day was modernized, the press improved, the paper 'woven' instead of 'laid' (a radical departure), and the freshly printed sheets were pressed between hot plates to 'glaze', thus giving such 'perfect polish that we could suppose the paper made of silk rather than a linen'." (Ege, Otto F.)
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Show more"Early in 1509, the translation of Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff by the English priest, Alexander Barclay, was first printed in England. This work of Barclay's called 'Ship of fooles of the world' is more a ship of fools of sixteenth century England than it is a translation of the earlier work. It presents an understanding of the poverty-stricken priest and court-ridden life of the common people during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Both the original author, Brant, and the translator, Barclay, held to the general design 'to ridicule the prevailing follies and vices of every rank and profession under the allegory of a ship freighted with fools. Fools are evil and malicious people to be displayed and scolded'. Barclay installs himself as a captain, 'I am the first fole of all the hole navy'. These writers found hundred and ten categories, even in those simple days, to ridicule. It is done in delightful verse. Zeydal states that this book 'played an important role in outmoding medieval allegory and mortality and in directing literature into the channels of the drama, the essay and the novel of character'. The woodcuts which added much to the popularity of Barclay?s translation are crude copies of those who appeared in the original Basle edition, often attributed to young Dürer" "John Cawood, who printed this second edition of the Ship of fooles in 1570, was appointed Royal Printer by Queen Mary in 1553. Strangely enough, he retained this lucrative post under Queen Elizabeth, who, however, made him share the honor and privileges of this title with another printer, Richard Jugge" (Ege, Otto F.)
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Show moreCaption: "Hieronymus, more generally known as St. Jerome, finished his Herculean task, the preparation of the "Edition of the Holy Scriptures in General Use", or the Vulgate Bible, in the year 414 A.D. Fourteen years were spent in reading and checking the innumerable texts in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The later language Jerome began to learn only at the age of forty. This Vulgate version of the bible is one of the most important ever compiled. It became the standard Bible of the western world for over a thousand years, although it required several hundred years to win the place it deserved. It gave birth to ecclesiastical Latin, the international language of the medieval world. Many of the existing letters of Jerome give us a picture not only of his violent temper, but also of the resulting controversies regarding his version of the Bible. In one, he called a critic a "two-legged ass", in another, he accused certain copyists of "being more asleep than a wake." With almost superhuman skill and patience, and without the aid of eyeglasses, the Dominicans produced a large number of these "Miniature" or "Portable" Bibles to be used in the Sorbonne, the newly established school of theology of the University of Paris, as well as by the wandering friars of this order. The well executed gothic book-hand of nine lines of writing to an inch was done with a crow or eagle quill. The vellum used was obtained from the internal organs of the newly born or calves and is finer than our present "india" paper. Four hundred leaves measured slightly less than an inch in thickness." (Ege, Otto F.)
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Show more"Hippocrates' (460-357 B.C) enormous influence on the progress of medicine is due to the fact that he separated medicine from religion and superstition and placed it on a scientific basis. He formulated its ideals in what is known as the Hippocratic Oath, which is administered with great solemnity to graduates of medicine in many universities of today. Almost as universally known as this oath are the aphorisms of the author, such as : "Life is short and the art is long, the occasion fleeting": "Experiences is fallacious and judgment difficult": "The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and the externals cooperate". Hippocrates' ideas and observations, with few exceptions, were a profound anticipation of modern knowledge. One exception is his theory of the four humors which make up the body-blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, whose healthy or unhealthy mixtures depend upon the influence of the heavenly bodies. The famous house of Giunta, printers and publisher, was founded by Niccola in the latter part of the fifteenth century and continued for hundred years. It established important presses in Venice and Florence. Lucantonio in Venice was active from 1482 to 1536. His heirs continued to print under the same fine printers' devices and in the same tradition until the end of the sixteenth century. Many of the Giunta types are attributed to the famous designer, Le Bé. This work of Hippocrates is one of the finer of the later issues from the noted Venetian branch of the Giunta family" (Ege, Otto F.)
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