While image printing techniques were invented in the West around 1400, it took several decades for a public particularly fond of prints to emerge in Europe. Dismissed by contemporaries because of its mechanical nature, this new medium nevertheless ended up taking deep root in scholarly and artistic circles across Europe by the late 15th century.

This book focuses on one of the manifestations of this wide circulation of printed images: the birth of the first print collections. Initiated seemingly by religious communities, the practice of gathering engravings for preservation spread to civil society, particularly among humanists, who gradually devised strategies to collect, select, preserve, organize, and display their prints. These Renaissance collections were driven by two dynamics, which might overlap depending on the collector's personality: on the one hand, a quest for knowledge, as prints could convey scientific lore concerning the humanities or natural sciences, and thus find a place in libraries; and on the other hand, an aesthetic aspiration, viewing engravings as works of delight that could sit alongside drawings, paintings, or objects of curiosity in a cabinet or a Kunstkammer. These practices developed during the long sixteenth century form the foundation of the methods employed by print collectors throughout the early modern period and beyond.