Woodcuts as reading guides. How images shaped knowledge transmission in medical-astrological books in Dutch (1500-1550)

Abstract

In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries saw the rise of a lively market for practical and instructive books that targeted a diversified audience of primarily non-specialists. In what ways did woodcuts shape reading experiences in such books that intended to convey knowledge of medicine and astrology in the Dutch vernacular? This book historical study not only uncovers the strategies, assumptions, and intentions of book producers to which images testify, but crucially also shows how actual readers engaged with these illustrated books. I argue that woodcuts – even the crudely cut ones, the tiny ones, and the incessantly copied ones – fulfil important rhetorical functions in knowledge communication. I demonstrate how images shaped three key mechanisms of knowledge transmission in particular: organising and visualising knowledge and conveying its reliability. In order to understand how images influenced the reading process, attention for the materiality of the book as a whole is crucial. For a precise understanding of this influence, I draw on insights on visual rhetoric from the field of information design studies. This study also demonstrates that materiality yields important insights into the actual use of illustrated books and the customisation of medical-astrological knowledge by early modern readers. Their traces – whether markings, extensive annotations, quickly scribbled symbols or hand-colouring – not only testify to readers’ interests and reading practices, but also to their conceptualisation of the page as a visual space and in some cases specifically to what caught their eye in images.