node 2250

Hello,

it's now half a year that I am searching for a website that was offering high quality scans (300 DPI) of some really old books (from the 14th to 19th century I think).

As far as I remember it was in italian or spanish, a kind of an online exhibition of a museum or a foundation. There were italian, spanish, french, german and english books. Per book there were at least 3 scans. Mostly one of the title page, some illustrations and the colophon.

And I tell you, the illustrations in those books were more than fantastic! As I first saw it I was thinking "now that's for sure the best way to study old faces online".

Now, can somebody help me out with the URL? (I've lost it due to a hard drive crash..)

The only thing that comes close to it is http://wally.rit.edu/cary/cc_db/subject_library.html but it is still miles away of the material offered on the other website.

Thank you,
Roman Schechtel
(for german readers: http://www.designmadeingermany.de/forum.php4?thread_ID=3549 )

unknown

It�s not what you are looking for but you might
find Gutenberg Digital interesting too...

unknown

Octavo rules.

I recently did a little "experiment" in separating the ink and the impression from letterpress.
Instead of the front, I took the backside of the impression of a large "R" from an Octavo book...

R_f&b.jpg

then flipped it horizontally and inverted the brightness:

So that's the impression itself (although somewhat damped by the consistency of the paper).

hhp

unknown

How about collecting links to resources like these
in a new thread under the Open Directory Project?

unknown

I bought the Octavo CD of Bodoni's "Manuale" but didn't think the resolution (300 dpi?) was sharp enough for a really good inspection of the type.

I guess I'm spoiled by my plain ol' $150 desktop scanner (Snapscan), which is like a microscope, at least 1200 dpi, if I recall.

unknown

> Snapscan

That's the one I have too! (Or actually the "Touch" model). I love it - the secret is the stellar Agfa software. Damn shame they stopped making scanners. BTW, it only goes to 600 optical - at least in the lateral dimension. BTW, if you want a real microscope, check out drum scanners: 4000-8000 dpi!

hhp

unknown

Hello again,

your postings were quite interesting this far,
but the website I'm searching for wasn't
mentioned.. Octavo seems interesting too.

Maybe someone else knows the one I'm searching for?

Captured from web.archive.org on 22 May 2006. view this capture