Woodcuts and Wood-Engravings

Christian Egenolff (1502-1555)
Plantarum, arborum, fruticaum, et herbarum effigies....
Franckfurt: Christian Egenolffs, 1562

Egenolff first was a student of the Humanities, but sometime after 1516 took up bookprinting. By 1530 he had established a bookprinting business in Frankfurt-am-Main and from there published some 400 books over the next 25 years. He was sued in 1533 for infringement of copyright but argued in his defense that plant likenesses could not be copyrighted - they were there for all to use. Here are presented plates from his 1562 plant identification volume.

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