The Learned Eye: Regarding Art, Theory, and the Artist's Reputation (review)
great deal of sense. Printers’ marks reflecting classical antiquity began to appear only in the late fifteenth century, slowly growing until Erasmus’s famous adage 1,001, Festina lente, appeared in 1508, making the humanistic signet more popular before it gradually died out in midcentury. With the growth of publication in vernacular languages, the humanistic signet declined. While she attributes the waning of the humanistic printers’ mark to the disappearance of the motto and the increasing emphasis on the image, and reads this as a direct response to the growing popularity of emblems, I cannot subscribe to this interpretation, as emblems include both texts and images and therefore present no compelling reason for the disappearance of the motto, and hence humanistic signets. This small quibble aside, Wolkenhauer has produced a fine study that all those interested in the history of the book and printing in its cultural context must consult. The Wolfenbüttel publishing house is to be commended on a fine job, as the volume is handsomely produced, the design layout very good, and the pictures are of high quality. MARA R. WADE University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign