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474 results
The First Russian Book Printer, 1583
This book, published in Kiev in 1895, is a short biography of Ivan Fyodorov (circa 1510–83), intended for the general reader. Along with Schweipolt Fiol and Francysk Skaryna, Fyodorov was one of the fathers of printing in the East Slavic region. He graduated from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, and later worked in Moscow, where he published liturgical works using movable type, the first books printed in Russia. He was driven from Moscow by scribes who feared competition from his innovation and fled to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...
Contributed by
National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine
The Baptistery of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev
This book is about the baptistery of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. The name of the cathedral comes from the sixth-century Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and means “Holy Wisdom,” rather than dedication to a particular saint. Designed as “the new Constantinople” to represent Eastern Christianity, Saint Sophia in Kiev was first constructed in the 11th century. The baptistery was built into the cloister a few years later and its walls still bear frescoes from the 11th–12th centuries. By the early 20th century, the baptistery was in a ...
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National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine
Fortress of Brum in Pernambuco
This 19th-century plan, made by a captain in the Brazilian Army’s inspectorate of fortresses, shows the fortress at Brum, which was constructed by the Dutch and the Portuguese in the 17th century.
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National Library of Brazil
Fortress of Dio: Plans of Plazas and Forts of Portuguese Possessions in Asia and Africa
This drawing shows the fortress of Diu, located on an island off the northwest coast of India. In 1509, the Portuguese defeated the forces of the Sultan of Gujarat in the Battle of Diu, thereby securing dominance over trade routes in the Indian Ocean. Construction of this fortress-garrison complex began in 1535, under an agreement with the sultan, but the agreement fell apart and the sultan’s troops attacked the fort in 1537. The fortress was reconstructed in 1545 by João de Castro (1500-48), a Portuguese naval commander and the ...
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National Library of Brazil
Fortress of Chaul: Plans of Plazas and Forts of Portuguese Possessions in Asia and Africa
This drawing shows the fortress of Chaul, one of Portugal’s defense complexes along the western coast of India. The Portuguese first settled at Chaul in 1521 and constructed a fort, which was rebuilt several times. The structure shown in this drawing most likely is the one built in 1613, which featured expanded defense works.
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National Library of Brazil
The Treasure of Khvarazm’Shah
Ismā‘īl ibn Ḥasan Jurjānī (circa 1042–circa 1136, also seen as Jorjānī and Gurjānī), known popularly as Hakim Jurjānī, was among the most famous physicians of 12th-century Iran. In the period between the Islamic conquest and the time of Jurjānī, almost all scientific books by Iranians were written in Arabic, including such famous works as al-Qānūn fī al-tibb (The canon of medicine) by Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Jurjānī's medical encyclopedia, Zakhīrah-i Khvārazm’Shāhī (The treasure of Khvarazm’Shah) was the first major medical book in post-Islamic Iran written in ...
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National Library and Archives of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The Art of Making Mechanical Timepieces for Church Towers, Rooms, and Pockets
Manuel del Río was a Spanish Franciscan, said to have been a skilled watchmaker, who probably learned the trade in Oporto, Portugal, with Tomás Luis de Sáa. Del Río belonged to the Franciscan community in Santiago, where in 1759 he published Arte de los reloxes de ruedas (The art of making mechanical timepieces). The work was reissued in 1789 in Madrid by del Río’s disciple Ramón Durán. That edition is presented here. The prologue states that one of the reasons for writing the book was the lack of manuals ...
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National Library of Spain
Account of the Composition of the Human Body
Juan Valverde was a Spanish medical anatomist who was born in Amusco, in the present-day province of Palencia, around 1525. He left for Italy around 1542, and later practiced medicine and taught in Rome. He was the great Spanish follower of the new anatomy established by Andreas Vesalius in 1543 with his work De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body). Vesalius was responsible for a new vision of the human body in the modern world. Valverde helped to spread this vision through the 16 editions in ...
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National Library of Spain
Treatise on Field Fortifications
Giovan Battista Belluzzi (1506–54) was a San Marino native who served as chief military engineer to Cosimo I de' Medici (1519–74), duke of Florence. This manuscript, believed to be in Belluzzi’s own hand, was written for Stefano IV Colonna, a Florentine general also in the employment of the Medici family. The manuscript contains instructions for building military fortifications in remote areas, using only local resources such as earth and wood as structural elements. The text includes a discourse on how to evaluate the condition of the soil ...
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Riccardiana Library of Florence
The Encyclopedia of Medicaments
This book is a printed edition of the Pandectarum Medicinae (Encyclopedia of medicaments) by Matthaeus Sylvaticus (died circa 1342), consisting of an alphabetized list of medications (primarily of herbal origin). Sylvaticus relies on the work of Simon of Genoa (flourished end of 13th century), who provided a lexicon of Latin, Greek, and Arabic medical terms in his dictionary, Clavis Sanationis. Sylvaticus also draws upon works by Greco-Roman authorities such as Galen, Dioscorides, and Paulus Aegineta (seventh century). Among his other sources were the writings of important scientists from the Islamic ...
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Qatar National Library
“The Scientific Essay on the Need for Compound Remedies” from the "Canon of Medicine"
Abū Alī al-Ḥusayn Ibn Sīnā (980–1037) was one of the intellectual luminaries of the medieval world. Known in the Latin West as Avicenna, this Persian polymath was often referred to by Muslim authors as al-Shaykh al-Ra'īs, in acknowledgement of his role as one of the foremost savants of the Islamic world. A prolific author, Ibn Sīnā wrote on topics as varied as metaphysics, theology, medicine, psychology, earth sciences, physics, astronomy, astrology, and chemistry. His fame in Europe rests principally on his Canon of Medicine, which was translated into ...
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Qatar National Library
The Book of Horses
This work is an undated manuscript copy of the Faras-nāma (The book of horses) of ʻAbd Allāh Khān Bahādur Fīrūz. It apparently was written during the reign of Shah Jahan (reigned 1628–58) and based in part on a versified source in Sanskrit of 16,000 shloka (couplets), the Shalihotra, dating from 2500–1500 BC. Among the topics treated are the color of a horse's coat and its significance (chapter 2), the horse's mane (chapter 3), signs indicating the agility of a horse on the battlefield (chapter ...
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Qatar National Library
Of Medical Substances
The precious codex known as the Dioscurides Neapolitanus contains the work of Pedanius Dioscorides, the Greek physician who was born at Anazarbus near Tarsus in Cilicia (present-day Turkey) and lived in the first century AD during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Dioscorides wrote the treatise Perì üles iatrichès, commonly known in Latin as De materia medica (Of medical substances), in five books. It is considered the most important medical manual and pharmacopeia of ancient Greece and Rome and was highly regarded in the Middle Ages in both the Western ...
Contributed by
National Library of Naples
Letter from Otto Ringling, October 26, 1907
Otto Ringling (1858–1911) was the son of a German immigrant who, with his brothers Albert, Alfred, Charles, John, August, and Henry, created the Ringling Bros. circus empire in the late 19th century. The brothers bought the competing Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907. They ran the circuses separately at first, but merged them in 1919 to create the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which came to be known as “the Greatest Show on Earth.” This letter, written by Otto to his brothers in October 1907, details how the assets ...
Contributed by
Illinois State University's Special Collections, Milner Library
Tokareva House, Built around 1900, Detail of Main Facade, Perm', Russia
This view of the main façade of the Tokareva house at No. 67 Kirov (formerly Permskaia) Street in Perm' was taken in 1999 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. Established in the 1720s as a factory settlement on the middle reaches of the Kama River, Perm' (so named in 1781) is one of Russia's largest cities. Before the 1917 revolution, Perm’ was the center of a large and prosperous merchant community ...
Contributed by
Library of Congress
Tartar District, Ordzhonikidze Street #26, House (Late 19th Century), Perm', Russia
This view of a wooden house at No. 26 Ordzhonikidze (formerly Monastyrskaia) Street, in the Tatar district of Perm', was taken in 1999 by Dr. William Brumfield, American photographer and historian of Russian architecture, as part of the "Meeting of Frontiers" project at the Library of Congress. Established in the 1720s as a factory settlement on the middle reaches of the Kama River, Perm’ (so named in 1781) is one of Russia's largest cities. Before the 1917 revolution, it was the center of a large merchant community, of which ...
Contributed by
Library of Congress
Peony and Canary
The Japanese art of Ukiyo-e (“Pictures of the floating [or sorrowful] world”) developed in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) during the Tokugawa or Edo Period (1600-1868), a relatively peaceful era during which the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan and made Edo the seat of power. The Ukiyo-e tradition of woodblock printing and painting continued into the 20th century. This print, made in 1833 or 1834, is part of the series "Small Flowers" by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). It is unusual in its background color and its size. Other examples of this ...
Contributed by
Library of Congress
Treatise on the Craft of Weight Measurement
This work is a treatise on the construction and use of the weighing balance (qabān, also qapān). It brings together geometric, mechanical, and arithmetic knowledge needed to construct and utilize measuring devices for weighing heavy and irregularly-shaped objects. The author’s name is unknown, but excerpts from another work by an already-deceased Shaykh ‘Abd al-Majīd al-Shāmulī al-Maḥallī are quoted in the treatise. The last page of the manuscript contains a sheet of verses that describe the basics of using a weighing balance, in a form that is easy to remember ...
Contributed by
National Library and Archives of Egypt
Asnières. Pontoon Bridge
The Franco-Prussian War was brought about by rising tensions between France and Prussia in the 1860s. France, under Emperor Napoleon III, was determined to check the growth of Prussian power and avenge what it saw as a series of diplomatic humiliations. Prussia, under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, believed that a Prussian-led war of the German states against France would be a decisive act leading to creation of a unified German empire. The conflict began on July 19, 1870, when France declared war. The French army proved woefully unprepared and suffered ...
Contributed by
National Library of Brazil
Arches of the Auteuil Viaduct
The Franco-Prussian War was brought about by rising tensions between France and Prussia in the 1860s. France, under Emperor Napoleon III, was determined to check the growth of Prussian power and avenge what it saw as a series of diplomatic humiliations. Prussia, under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, believed that a Prussian-led war of the German states against France would be a decisive act leading to creation of a unified German empire. The conflict began on July 19, 1870, when France declared war. The French army proved woefully unprepared and suffered ...
Contributed by
National Library of Brazil
Mr. Vidigal's Diamond Mine in the Jequitinhonha River (Removing Gravel)
The Thereza Christina Maria Collection consists of 21,742 photographs assembled by Emperor Pedro II and left by him to the National Library of Brazil. The collection covers a vast range of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and the Brazilian people in the 19th century, as well as includes many photographs from Europe, Africa, and North America. In 1868, the photographer Augusto Riedel took part in an expedition to the interior of Brazil that visited several mining towns. This photograph, taken by Riedel, shows a mine on the ...
Contributed by
National Library of Brazil