Historiated Initials from Andreas Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica

What a wonderful collection of illustrations! It's always a treasure to see a site that has a niche, focused subject matter. There's an obvious sort of whimsy and passion in how the site itself is implemented.

From the custom skeletal hand mouse cursor, to the crossbones used as borders for some images [0], to the mouseovers on some of the initials where the letter is photoshopped out to show the background [1], to the fact that the site still has a guestbook [2]... there's a great character to the site that makes it enjoyable to interact with. Much more engaging than the overpolished style of so much online nowadays.

I also thought it was interesting to note the practice of almost-copies of certain woodcut illustrations over the centuries [0]. In our era of trivial lossless copying of digital data, it's easy to forget how much had to be done by hand in the past.

[0] http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbein26.htm [1] http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbeina.htm [2] http://www.dodedans.com/Ebook01.php