JF Ptak Science Books Post 1877
For a number of years following the invention of the movable type press, title pages were very simple affairs, generally starting with a simple statement of the title (the incipit) and then right off to the beginning of the book, right there on the same page, with the information about who printed the book where and when saved for the final page of text, the colophon. Ornamentation came a little slowly (or perhaps slowly), with the first recognizable-to -modern-eyes title page appearing in the Calendarium of Regiomonatnus, printed in woodcut and metal-type in Venice in 1476, with the date unusually displayed in Arabic numerals. The issue of more appealing display in book presentation--the approachable title page, illustrations and covers--became a true issue after the printers in Augsburg in the 1470's revolutionized book production by introducing a more industrialized method of production.
The issue of illustration really didn't start to ramp up until after 1500 when the expensive and time-consuming standard of using woodblocks in the production of images was replaced by the copperplate engraving. And it was during this time, in the very early 16th century, that ornate and illustrated images began to appear on the title page itself.
One example of a curious approach to illustration belongs to Hans Holbein, who created a somewhat three-dimensional ornamental and cascading title page that also happened to contain an image of Cleopatra in a suicide-by-snake. The snake may have been an Egyptian asp, and perhaps not, if she committed suicide by this manner at all. Cleopatra finally was led to this end on 30 August 30 BCE after a long string of affairs and consorts with Rome and its Emperors, failing finally after the death of Marc Antony and the rejection by OCtavian (who later would become Augustus, perhaps the greatest of Roman Emperors). In any event, we see Cleopatra here committing the deed, with what may be some of Antony's Alexandria-based fleet in the background.
The design was copied many times, and used for a number of different title pages--the first time being in a work by Erasmus in 1523, and in the example below, later, in 1526. Offhand it is difficult for me to say if there are earlier suicides on thte title pages of books, but this would certainly be among the earliest, if not the earliest yet.
(Also appearing on either side of the columns in the middle of the page is Dionysius of Syracuse, an autocrat of the highest order, here shown plucking bits of treasure from the statues of gods. There were two rules named Dionysius, father and son, I and II; the elder may have been killed by the younger via physician-assisted poisoning; the younger (of Damocles and the sword fame among other things usually not so pretty) was equally tyrannical and also came to a bad end.)
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