This exhibition surveys European book illustration during the sixteenth century. Examples include the very best—but also the most typical—and all come from Penn's rich collections of sixteenth-century European printing. Their wide variety of styles and subjects illuminate what early modern book illustrators provided readers in an environment visually far less rich than the one we take for granted. Religion, labor, science, warfare, costume, medicine, portraits, exotic places, and more—all these topics found their way not only into words but also into pictures. Opening up Penn's books not for their texts but their illustrations offers an entirely new way to see them.

Download the guide to the exhibition (pdf)