Here be Dragons

The Cassiodorus volume is remarkable for its copious marginal annotations in a contemporary hand (15th or early 16th century), featuring not only Latin text but also pointing hands, human faces, a crown and a bird.

Dragon illustrations were still popular some 200 years after the publication of the Cassiodorus work, as for instance in the second image, taken from The history of four-footed beasts and serpents, by Edward Topsell, 1658.

Finding aids and further information

• Incunable Collection
• Printed books