The first complete printed Bible in Icelandic. These Bibles were more popularly known as Gudbrands Biblia after their translator and editor Gudbrandur Thorlaksson, Bishop of Holar (1571-1627).

In 1588 King Philip II of Spain sent a great fleet (Armada) to invade England which was defeated by the English fleet and the English weather.

The first printings of the English Bible were rather cloak and dagger affairs. All of the first editions were printed abroad at unspecified locations. This reflects the power of the Catholic Church in England in the early 16th century, and the desire of the younger Henry VIII to promote himself as amongst the most pious and Christian princes of the day. The Church recognised only the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible and viewed any attempt at translation into a vernacular as heretical.

An illustrated Latin translation of the Taqwim al-Sihhah (The maintenance of health), originally written by the eleventh-century Iraqi physician Ibn Butlan (died ca. 1038). This work, which is tabular in form, treats matters of hygiene, dietetics and exercise. It emphasises the benefits of daily attention to personal physical and mental well-being.

When Martin Luther pasted his Ninety-five theses onto the door of the church in Wittenberg Castle in 1517, he initiated the Protestant Reformation. The impact of his writings was amplified by the fact that many were printed, and therefore reached a much broader readership, particularly when translated into German.

The printing of a language often ensures its survival, particularly when it is faced with competition from the language of an economically and culturally powerful and ambitious neighbour. Although printing in Welsh began in 1546, it was the production of this work, the first complete Bible in Welsh, that ensured the continuing vitality of literature in Welsh.

This image forms one of a sequence of 153 plates illustrating the Gospel stories, first published separately in 1593, then with a commentary in this edition, commissioned by Geronimo Nadal at the instigation of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (1540). Nadal was one of the first ten members of the order, and Loyola’s personal representative.

Everard Digby was admitted to St John's in 1567 and became a Fellow in 1573. His best known work is this book on swimming, the earliest such work to be published in England. The illustrations are composed from five landscape blocks with swimmers in different positions inserted in the middle.

Reports of strange phenomena and creatures from foreign lands had long filtered back to Europeans who then proceeded to populate the blank spaces on maps with them. They also flourished as woodcuts and engravings in many books from the time, some of which were re-used in several different volumes owing to the cost of production.

This work, a reprint of the first book exclusively devoted to plastic surgery and particularly nasal reconstruction, was written by Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1545-1599) of Bologna, in response to the number of facial injuries caused by dueling and other forms of combat, as well as syphilis.