Letter and Image - V

Anonymous Printmaker
Ex Libris
ca. 1700
hand-colored engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Ex Libris
ca. 1650-1700
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Giovanni Antonio and Jacopo de' Franceschi, Venice
1606
woodcut and letterpress
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous Printmaker
Colophon with Pressmark of Lucantonio Giunti, Venice
1500
woodcut and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Christoph Froschauer, Zürich
ca. 1520-30
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Erhardt Ratdolt, Augsburg
1487
color woodblock print and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Lorenz Stör
Title-Page - Perspective Studies
1567
chiaroscuro woodcut and letterpress
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Hans Wolff Glaser
Halo observed around the Sun and interpreted as Divine Warning
1556
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Georg Mack
Sighting of a Comet
1577
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Alfred Rethel
Marginal Ornaments in Faux-Gothic Style
ca. 1840-50
drawing
(colored ink on detached incunabulum leaf)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff
Thracian Landscape
(illustration page from the Nuremberg Chronicle)
1493
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Bernhard Jobin
Malchopapo
(anti-Papal broadside)
1577
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Wenceslaus Hollar after Leonardo da Vinci
Title-Page - Varie Figurae
1645
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jacques Floris
Pecuniosus Damnari Non Potest
(aphorism of Cicero quoted by Erasmus)
1556
woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Men learned in the stars say I am short-lived.  I am, Seleucus, but I care not.  There is one road down to Hades for all, and if mine is quicker, I shall see Minos all the sooner.  Let us drink, for this is very truth, that wine is a horse for the road, while foot-travellers take a by-path to Hades. 

O Boeotian Helicon, once didst thou often shed from thy springs the water of sweet speech for Hesiod. But still for us does the boy who bears thy name pour out Italian wine from a fountain that causes less care. Rather would I drink one cup only from his hand than a thousand of Castalia from thine.

Seven years added to thirty are gone already like so many pages torn out of my life; already, Xanthippe, my head is sprinkled with grey hairs, messengers of the age of wisdom. But still I care for the speaking music of the lyre and for revelling, and in my insatiate heart the fire is alive. But ye Muses, my mistresses, bring it to a close at once with the words, "Xanthippe is the end of my madness." 

Dead, five feet of earth shall be thine and thou shalt not look on the delights of life or on the rays of the sun. So take the cup of unmixed wine and drain it rejoicing, Cincius, with thy arm round they lovely wife. But if thou deemest wisdom to be immortal, know that Cleanthes and Zeno went to deep Hades. 

Though thy life be always sedentary, and thou hast never sailed on the sea or traversed the high roads of the land, yet set thy foot on the Attic soil, that thou mayest see these long nights of Demeter's holy rites, whereby while thou art among the living thy mind shall be free from care, and when thou goest to join the greater number it shall be lighter.

Rough, sweet-scented dust of Sorrento, hail, and hail, thou earth of Pollenza most honied and Asta's soil thrice desired, from which the triple band of Graces knead for Bacchus the clay that is akin to wine! Hail, common possession of wealth and poverty, to the poor a necessary vessel, to the rich a more superfluous instrument of luxury!*

– from Book XI (Convivial and Satirical Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

*He addresses the different soils from which the clay considered most suitable for wine-jars came.