1. For starters, the book has an interesting composition of text and illustrations. The text is mostly composed of titles and sub-titles at the beginning of the book with different font-sizes. The calligraphy of the text is very sophisticated and some letters differ from today’s alphabet. The largest font size is the title that is quite imposing and the writing in general has quite a dramatic, gothic style.
The first page of the book is written in black and red, introducing the different themes and parts that the book contains. Some letters, as for example the first letters of a page are written in a very large font size and ornamented with beautiful drawings of flowers and diverse decorations. The calligraphy and the precision of the drawings shows that the book may have been produced for the upper-class and was most likely expensive.
Nevertheless, the book only has 21 pages with text, that are mostly a list numbering and explaining all the drawings to come. Indeed, the rest of the pages are all architectural drawings. Some of the pages beholding the drawings are foldout spreads with the size of an A2 or A1 page. All the drawings are very precise and detailed, with drawings of geometrical forms, roofs, churches and many houses that seem to be of high society.
All the images have a number that brings to the reference list at the beginning of the book, explaining what the drawing contains and its use. It is quite obious that the drawings have the most important role in this book and that the text is mostly there to describe the drawings. This book must have been created for a reference of the architectural achievements of Johann Vogel, but could also have been used for academic purposes, or purchased for private use or collection in higher society.
2. Saddly, the gothic typography is too complex for the OCR systems to recognise the texts, so I had to use the text from another book, that is called “The Prince” by Nicolo Machiavelli, first written in the 16th century, but updated recently. The two books are very different, mostly because this book is only text and doesn’t have illustrations.