A true & faithful relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr John Dee ... and some spirits (London, 1659).

John Dee was, and remains, one of the College's most infamous and intriguing alumni. He proceeded BA from St John’s in 1545 and became a Fellow of the College before moving to Trinity as one of its original Fellows in 1546. A polymath and humanist who wrote over 80 scholarly works and was involved in calendar reform, providing medical and legal advice to Elizabeth I, describing comets and drawing up geographical descriptions of newly explored territories, he is also remembered for practising astrology and communicating with spirits.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: Andrew Crooke, 1651).

The frontispiece to a work could act as a guide to the subject matter and argument of a volume, and the best might achieve a succinctness and impact that the text itself might lack. That to Thomas Hobbes’s major work on political theory is a prime example.

Jacob Colom, L'ardante ou flamboyante colom de la mer (Amsterdam, 1644).

The north coast of Britain as seen through the eyes of a Dutch pilot, from a book of navigational charts produced by Jacob Aertsz Colom. It is possible to pick out Hartlepool and Sunderland on the diagram below, as well as Scarborough and Whitby. Colom was struggling to assert his own business against the monopoly that W.J.

Joannes de Laet, L'histoire du Nouveau Monde, ou, Description des Indes Occidentales (Leiden: Elzevir, 1640).

Detail from a French translation of Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, a description of North and South America full of charts, and botanical, zoological and ethnographical illustrations originally published in 1630. One of the charts was the first to show New York, which was founded in 1626, under the original name of New Amsterdam.

The booke of common prayer (Edinburgh: Robert Young, 1637).

The title page of Archbishop Laud's edition of the Book of common prayer, the introduction of which into the Scottish church started a chain of events which helped precipitate the Civil Wars of the 17th century.

Famiano Strada, De bello Belgico (Rome: Francesco Corbelletti, 1632).

A map of the Low Countries in the form of a Belgic lion, incorporated into the title page of this work about the Dutch wars of independence against Habsburg Spain between 1555 and 1590 which is replete with engraved battle scenes.

Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion (London, 1622).

Michael Drayton (1563-1631) was a prolific poet and part of a circle that included the likes of Ben Jonson, and possibly also Shakespeare. The first part of this work, a huge topographical poem covering England and Wales, was first published in 1612, and subsequently reprinted in 1622 with the second part which completed it.

Le theatre d'honneur de plusieurs princes anciens et modernes (Paris, 1621).

This collection of portraits of rulers, pontiffs, and celebrated men spans biblical and classical antiquity through to the 17th century. It obviously took a fair bit of assembling after printing.

Johannes van Meurs, Icones, elogia ac vitae professorum Lugdunensium apud Batavos (Leiden: Andries Clouck, 1617).

Engravings showing the facilities available at the University of Leiden including the anatomical lecture theatre and the Library. They are taken from a volume which also includes engravings of the duelling courts and the botanical gardens, printed about 40 years after the University's foundation by William the Silent in 1575.

Philipp Cluver, Germaniae antiquae libri tres (Leiden: Louis Elzevir, 1616).

A classical depiction of the barbarian, wearing little but a head-dress and wielding a sword, from a volume on the ancient Germans by Philipp Cluver (1580-1622).

Subscribe to