Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717)

She was a female artist specializing in natural sciences. I don't want to write too much about it, because I'm angry with myself for blowing off an exhibition of her work at the Getty.

Joris Hoefnagel

Joris (George) Hoefnagel was a 16th century painter and illustrator. His forte was nature. He illustrated a gorgeous miniature book, Mira calligraphiae monumenta, a model book of calligraphy. A master calligrapher did the writing (which is incredible), and 30 years later, Hoefnagel was commissioned to illustrate it. The above illustration is not from that book but is in the same style.

Digital Scriptorium

The Digital Scriptorium is a collection of medieval & renaissance handwriting that can be magnified very large. I only discovered it, and have much exploring to do. By the way, this initial is not from the site but it's representative.

Napoleon's Scientific Expedition to Egypt

Who knew? Napoleon's engineers and artists studied ruins of ancient Egypt --- discovered the Rosetta Stone -- and introduced Europe to the mysteries of this ancient world. This was an exhibit at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City.

Illustration: The Zodiac of Dendera is a large carved stone slab showing the constellations of the zodiac. It was discovered in a small chapel at Dendera by Vivant Denon in 1799. Denon made a drawing, and subsequently another was made by Prosper Jollois and Edouard Devilliers. In 1822, the zodiac was wrested from its chapel ceiling and taken to Paris, where it became an object of intense interest to astronomers, who hoped to use the star positions to date the artifact.

Famous book

Book located at Trinity College Library, Dublin. Fantastic medieval manuscript.

Free Online Book on Ornamental Letters

A great find on Project Gutenberg -- illustrated book called Letters and Lettering: A Treatise with 200 Examples by Frank Choutou Brown.