Monday, December 29, 2008


I sometimes wish books still had frontispieces. This is one from a late 18th century work by Frederic Lewis Norden titled The Antiquities, Natural History, Ruins, and Other Curiousities of Egypt, Nubia, and Thebes. It's a real hodgepodge of images; I love it.

There are Egyptian ruins, a quasi-Minerva figure representing Imperial Rome, some animals native to Africa, and to top it all off (literally) an angel blowing a trumpet. It helps lend a mythic dimension to what is, I presume, a historical work.

1 comment:

Eccentric Scholar said...

You wrote:

"It helps lend a mythic dimension to what is, I presume, a historical work."

Yes, yes, yes! All history is interpretation. Mythology reveals the archetypes at play and illuminates the deeper truths.