Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Book cover of Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Book description

An unusual collaboration among distinguished art historians and historians of science, this book demonstrates how printmakers of the Northern Renaissance, far from merely illustrating the ideas of others, contributed to scientific investigations of their time. Hans Holbein, for instance, worked with cosmographers and instrument makers on some of the earliest…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Brian D. Cohen

Author

The advent of the exactly repeatable pictorial statement is arguably the most significant technological and cultural innovation in the history of humankind. This book examines in detail the contributions to scientific knowledge made by significant Renaissance artists, Hans Holbein, Albrecht Dürer, and Hendrick Goltzius principally among them. In addition to reproducing woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, the book depicts various complex forms of paper engineering from the Renaissance that acted as scientific instruments, maps, simulacra, or utile devices in themselves.

From Brian's list on illustrated stories for grown-ups.