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The Laberinto of Andrea Ghisi is a 17th-century magic trick in book form. Pick an image from the 60 arrayed in front of you, and tell the magician only which quadrant it appears in. Repeat the process twice on different pages, and he can tell you what image you chose. You can see the trick performed at around 2:20 in this video, play a simulation, or see the book digitized in its entirety.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Feb 9, 2012 - 13 comments

Signs & Symbols: Decoding Mediaeval & Renaissance Iconography. An online exhibition from the Dunedin Public Library. Does what is implied on the tin, if you have a grounding in the history of tin-decoration.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Nov 13, 2011 - 11 comments

Treasures of the Bodleian. Oxford University's Bodleian Library will move into a substantially renovated home in 2015. In preparation, it has put online a selection of highlights from the collection, ranging from papyri to Penguins. You can vote for your favorite treasure, and the top vote-getter will go on display when the library reopens.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 5, 2011 - 8 comments

More than 300 heavily-annotated books from Charles Darwin's personal library have been digitized in a collaboration between Cambridge University, which holds the collection, and the Biodiversity Heritage Library, a project that has so far digitized nearly 50,000 titles from the natural sciences. And if you're looking for what Darwin wrote, rather than what he read, the University of Oklahoma has digitized the first edition of each of his 22 books.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jun 23, 2011 - 17 comments

Animated Anatomies is a new exhibition from Duke University Special Collections that examines the beautiful intricacies of anatomical flap books. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole on Apr 3, 2011 - 7 comments

In 1719, Louis Renard published Poissons, écrevisses et crabes, de diverses couleurs et figures extraordinaires, que l'on trouve autour des isles Moluques, et sur les côtes des terres australes. The book documented the newly discovered marine life of the East Indies in images of astonishing beauty, but dubious accuracy.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jan 4, 2011 - 7 comments

For more than one hundred years, the Guild of Bookworkers has been judging books by some pretty amazing covers.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Dec 7, 2010 - 6 comments

Timelines: Sources from History is a decade-by-decade visual index to the holdings of the British Library from the 1210s to the present.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jan 30, 2010 - 12 comments

In 1827, a first-time author paid to have a small number of copies of his book Tamerlane and Other Poems, by a Bostonian printed. When Edgar Allan Poe later reprinted the book under his own name, he apologized for its poor quality, but the first edition has become one of the most sought after rarities in book collecting. This week, one of the two copies in private hands sold for $662,500, but you can flip through this one for free.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Dec 5, 2009 - 5 comments

Libraries' Surprising Special Collections. [more inside]
posted by Horace Rumpole on Mar 3, 2009 - 44 comments