The Orbis Pictus

Complete and unabridged, with 10 full-page plates by Rosa Bonheur, John Constable and Norbert Goeneutte. The first illustrated schoolbook in Europe: the world in a hundred and fifty woodcuts, each with the Latin and the vernacular names of what is shown — trades, animals, the parts of a house, the soul, the last judgement. Comenius published it in 1658 and it was in print for two hundred years. The plan of it — a picture, a word, a thing — is the origin of every illustrated primer since. Ten paintings follow, from Jan Steen to Félix Vallotton, showing the everyday world of fields, mills and interiors that Comenius taught children to name.