Bible, Church Slavic, 1581 (fol. 78v)

The colophon identifies Ivan Fedorov of Moscow as the printer (his device appears just above the colophon) and that it was completed in 1581 on August 12 in Ostroh. Like the text above it, the colophon is in parallel columns of Greek and Church Slavic.

Bible, Church Slavic, 1581 (title page)

The Ostroh Bible is the first complete edition of the Bible printed in Cyrillic, made at the behest of Prince Konstantin Ostrogski.

Coronelle Romaine, matrices

These are matrices---the pieces of copper that are the molds used to produce pieces of type---used for the typeface Coronelle Romaine. If you zoom in, you can see the nicks at the bottom of the matrices used to orient them in the mold and the individual letter forms, as well as ligatures (joined letters), numbers, and assorted other characters. Stamps made to illustrate this typeface can be seen here.

Coronelle Romaine, stamps

These stamps illustrate the forms of individual sorts of the typeface Coronelle Romaine, designed by Hendrik van den Keere in the early 1570s. You can see the matrices for casting these sorts here.

Coronelle Romaine, unjustified matrices

These matrices have not yet been justified: they've been struck with the various letterforms and glyphs, but the resulting pieces of copper haven't been made uniform and ready to use. If you compare these matrices with the finished ones, you can easily see the difference.

Dodoens, Florum, 1568 (A1r)

Christopher Plantin's printer's device illustrates his motto, "Constantia et Labore" ("Perseverance and Work") with a compass, the fixed point of which represents the constancy of perseverance and the outer point representing labor.

Dodoens, Florum, 1568 (C8v)

This illustration of a corn-cockle is printed with a woodblock now owned by the Museum Plantin-Moretus and

Dowland, Songes, 1597 (L1r)

This page of music was printed so that four musicians could stand around a table sharing the book. The music itself was printed from tiny pieces of metal type, each with the 5 bars of the staff and a note; lined up in a series, the pieces of type formed a series of musical notes.

Dowland, Songes, 1597 (π1r)

A woodcut title page for John Dowland's collection of songs.

Dowland, Songes, 1597 (π2r)

The dedication begins with a large, historiated initial "T", a woodcut depicting a sailboat.