German family of painters, draughtsmen, and engravers. Georg Philipp Rugendas I, an esteemed painter and graphic artist in Augsburg, established a print publishing house there in 1735. His sons Georg Philipp Rugendas II (1701–74), Christian Rugendas (1708–81), and Jeremias Gottlob Rugendas (1710–72) helped with this business, as did their descendants, including Georg Philipp II’s grandson, the engraver ...
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Mendel Metzger
Family of Jewish printers, active in Italy, Turkey and Egypt. They originated in Germany but emigrated to Lombardy and settled in Soncino near Crema in 1454, taking the name of the town as their patronymic. Their first printing press was set up in Soncino by Yoshua (d 1493) and Moses (d 1489), sons of Israel Nathan (d 1492?), a physician. The family was active between 1483, the date of Yoshua’s first book, and 1562, when the 184th and last publication was printed by his great-great-nephew in Cairo. Seven family members were printers: Yoshua, his brother Moses, Moses’s sons Solomon and Gershom [Hieronymus Soncinus] (d 1534), Gershom’s children Moses and Eliezer (d 1547) and Eliezer’s son Gershom (d 1562). Yoshua published only Hebrew books (42 editions, all incunabula) during his short career (1483–9 in Soncino, 1489–92 in Naples). Gershom’s career, however, was one of the longest (...
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Judith K. Golden
Anonymous collection of in-depth typologies, based on the idea that every event in the New Testament was presaged by an event in the Old Testament ( see Typological cycles ). The Speculum humanae salvationis appeared first in manuscript form, then as Block-book s and later as incunabula. Chief among possible sources for the text is Ludolphus of Saxony (c. 1300–77), with Conradus of Altzheim, Vincent of Beauvais, Henricus Suso and Nicholas of Lyra among others also suggested authors. Like copies of the earlier Biblia pauperum, tituli and captions identify events and figures, however the Speculum humanae salvationis augments these pictures with a text that explains the illustrations. Between the early 14th century and the end of the 15th, several hundred copies, nearly all illustrated, were produced and translated from the original Latin into German, French, English, Dutch and Czech.
Typically the manuscripts include a Prologue and Prohemium, of text only; followed by forty-two chapters with four miniatures atop four text columns each of twenty-five lines; closing with three chapters with eight miniatures devoted to the Seven Stations of the Passion, the Seven Sorrows and the Seven Joys of Mary, these last three chapters not being typological. Some manuscripts omit opening texts or the final three chapters. Each opening provides a meditative, typological diptych of four images and clarifying text, for example Christ and the Last Supper as the first image, followed by Moses and the Miracle of Manna; Moses and Passover; Abraham blessed by Melchisedek. The first image contains gospel citations; the last three have captions indicating their relationship to the first....
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Isabelle Monod-Fontaine
French collectors, writers and patrons. Christian Zervos (b Cephalonia, Greece, 1 Jan 1889; d Paris, 12 Sept 1970) was of Greek origin and worked briefly for the magazine L’Art d’aujourd’hui, before founding Cahiers d’art in 1926. Covering contemporary painting and sculpture, music, architecture, film and photography, this magazine was internationally acclaimed not only for its promotion of major modernist artists but also for its immaculate presentation and typography. Its authors included critics, historians and aestheticians (Zervos himself, Tériade, Maurice Raynal, Georges Duthuit, P. G. Bruguière, Dupin), lending each issue a balance of historical analysis and poetic sensibility. Zervos’s concern with the relationship of image to text also extended to confrontations between contemporary art and non-European or primitive sources, such as Cycladic, African, or Oceanic art.
In addition to his editorial work, Zervos published his own monograph on Henri Rousseau (1927) and then books by other authors on Frank Lloyd Wright (...