Workshop Description:

This workshop will provide a hands-on learning experience on various aspects of the production and illustration of scientific books during the early modern period. The workshop examines the production of relief and intaglio printed images as part of hand press book production. We will look at the ways in which an original sketch, a finished drawing, or a previously published image is modified or developed in the printmaking processes. Bibliographical analysis will be introduced and participants will learn to identify and describe images. The participants will also understand the relationship of the images to the printed text in terms of the workshop practices of the multiple agents responsible for the book. Formal analysis of images will help us to understand the ways in which illustrations work in the communication of scientific theories, facts and observations. This workshop will provide participants with the essential tools for understanding the significance of scientific illustration within the material and intellectual history of the book in early modern Europe. In doing so, the workshop will provide an insight into the history and complex function of scientific images in the creation and circulation of scientific knowledge.

Workshop Structure:

The workshop will consist of eight 1.5 hour taught seminars in the Library of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. The seminars will be based on first-hand examination of original editions and examples of contemporary woodblocks and intaglio printing plates. All appropriate books and materials for the workshop will be provided at the venue.