Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

This publication is out of print and no longer available through the Harvard Art Museums Shop.  eBook available on the Art & Architecture Portal Winner, International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) 2012 Book Award An unusual collaboration among distinguished art historians, historians of science, and their students, 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 sundial manuals published; Albrecht Dürer produced the first printed maps of the constellations, which astronomers copied for over a century; and Hendrick Goltzius’s depiction of the muscle-bound Hercules served as a study aid for students of anatomy. Accompanying an exhibition organized by the Harvard Art Museums with objects from repositories across Europe and North America, the book offer