Item Summary

Broadsheet “… with 32 woodcuts illustrating prodigies of nature ... twenty-two of the woodcuts we have identified as having been used in the 1552 Oporinus edition of the Alsatian polyhistor Conrad Lycosthenes' version of Julius Obsequens' Prodigiorum liber, the fourth-century-AD Roman writer’s collection of tales of portents, miracles, strange births, comet sightings, haruspices, phantasms and other extraordinary figments, all extracted out of Livy … The watermark in our sheet occurs center-left, and appears to be an anchor with a center trefoil and the initials H and D on either side of the shank. This watermark is not recorded in the usual references or databases, but a mark with the same attributes can be assigned to Hands Düring, a papermaker active in Bern since 1550 …” – Dealer’s description.

Descriptive Information

Title
[Images of prodigies and portents].
Call Number
D West 43/GC095/Box 02/Normal GA 2025.00328
Identifier
ark:/88435/dcbn999m90z
Publisher
[Basel?] : [publisher not identified], [between 1550 and 1560?]
Language
No linguistic content
Date Created
1550-1560
Extent
1 print : woodcuts ; sheet 35.2 x 43.1 cm
Provenance
Princeton copy 1: Ink inscription at lower right, verso, "Ee / in der alten Kammer / 1805. Octobr."
Princeton copy 1: Acquired b W.S. Cotter from Stefan Wulf, Berlin, 2025.
Rights Statement
Copyright Not Evaluated
Contents
[1.] Wolf in sheep's wool
[2.] Razorback
[3.] Two-headed razorback
[4.] Razorback with man's head
[5.] Two-headed sheep facing right
[6.] Two-headed sheep facing left
[7.] Five-legged rooster
[8.] Four-legged rooster
[9.] Chicken with brood
[10.] Five-legged donkey
[11.] Three-legged donkey with nosebag
[12.] Two sheep
[13.] Unicorn
[14.] Sea-dog or Canes Mares-- [15.] Ox Roma tibi cave
[16.] Three-legged sheep as Pope [an almost identical cut in Parcelsus's 1536 Prognosticon]
[17.] Horned goat
[18.] Aurochs [similar to an image found in later editions of Munster's Cosmographia]
[19.] Fire-breathing (Colchis) bull
[20.] Reapers
[21.] Heavenly pyre
[22.] Plowman with fish
[23.] City destroyed by earthquake
[24.] Vision of ships in sky [thought to be UFOs by modern ufologists]
[25.] Ardenti maris
[26.] Resting bull
[27.] Heaven and hell
[28.] Crow "sp"-- [29.] Ram
[30.] Cloven sea monster
[31.] Vision of men in the clouds
[32.] Statue of Pyrrhus.
Notes
Title supplied by dealer.
Cf: Lycosthenes, Prodigiorum liber, Basel: Joannes Oporinus, 1552; Prodigiorum liber, Basel: Henricus Petrus, 1557; Paracelsus, Prognostication, Augsburg: Henrich Steiner, 1536; watermark: Filigrana database WZ0953.

Discovery Information

Subject
Omens—Pictorial works—Early works to 1800
Prints, European—Early works to 1800
Prints
Woodcuts
broadsheets

Physical Characteristics

File Count
2

Institutional Information

Collection
Omega Project
Selections from the Graphic Arts Collection
IIIF Manifest URL

https://figgy.princeton.edu/concern/scanned_resources/1de832e0-81c4-434c-9719-cb604d6385f8/manifest