main printed feature: woodcut

Woodcuts are illustrations printed by carving away areas from a block of wood, leaving the areas standing in relief to print when the block is inked. They were used throughout the hand-press period, and range in artistic quality to crude to elegant.

Banckes, Herball, 1552 (A1r)

The bulk of this title page is taken up with a long, descriptive title for the work that today we often refer to simply as "Banckes's Herbal."

Bible, Church Slavic, 1581 (fol. 1r)

The opening of Genesis is marked off with an elaborate woodcut headpiece, clearly separating the text of the Bible from the prefatory materials.

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.

Black Bird, 1790 (p1)

The title page to this small chapbook lists the 8 ballads printed therein along with a decorative woodcut.

Boethius, Arithmetica, 1492 (2l8v)

This printer's device for the brothers Giovanni and Gregorio de' Gregori is on the last page of their Boethius.

Caxton, Aesop, 1484 (fol. 38r)

This version of Aesop’s Fables is the first ever to have been printed in English. Caxton translated from Julien Macho's 1482 French edition and replicated Jehan Rousset's woodcuts from that edition as well.

Dodoens, Cruydt boeck, 1618 (Y4v)

In this Dutch version of Dodoens herbal, the same woodblock from the first edition is again used to illustrate the corn-cockle. It looks smaller here because this edition is formatted as a folio rather than an octavo.

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 (π1r)

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

Erasmus, Novum Instrumentum, 1516 (A1r)

Erasmus's translation of the Bible from Greek into Latin is appropriately presented in two parallel columns. Here, the initial page of his New Testament is set off with woodcut borders; the following pages are plain columns of text.