The fifteenth-century origins of color printmaking have largely been neglected in both the history of the book and the history of art. After a brief but fertile period of research waned around 1910, only a few more incunable color prints have come to light. The known corpus consists of some monochrome and bi-color printed type, initials and printers’ devices; several monochrome copper engravings; and many of the multi-color woodcut illustrations that Erhardt Ratdolt (active in Venice c.1474–86 and in Augsburg 1486–1527/8) published from the 1480s. This article documents for the first time two incunable engravings that were printed in color to illustrate the so-called Buch von der Astronomie (c. 1476) issued by the innovative printer Nicolaus Götz (active in Cologne 1474–80). One survives in monochromatic impressions in black and in red and the other survives in monochromatic black and various bi-color combinations of red and black. They demonstrate that multi-color prints, color-printed book illustrations, and color-printed intaglio designs first appeared in an earlier decade than has been realized. By reconstructing the techniques of their production, this article offers new insights into both the role of color in early printing projects and the combination of intaglio printmaking with typography. The findings contribute to current research trends exploring the earliest development and dissemination of color printmaking techniques in the history of art, the history of science and the history of the book.

During the mid-nineteenth century, etching experienced a widespread revival among artists working in France. Although the medium had been in use for centuries, interest in it had waned by 1800, alongside the invention of lithography and the developing popularity of reproductive engraving. By the 1860s, however, etching was embraced as a reaction against the negative associations of these media with industry and mass production.

This thesis considers the eighteenth-century search for the longitude through Plate 8 of
William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, where a ‘longitude lunatic’ seeks to solve the problem
on the wall of his cell in Bedlam. In doing so, it addresses two linked issues: first, how the
longitude problem was discussed by the wider British community, and how this affected the
actors directly involved in seeking the solution; and second, what was so iconic about this
problem that made Hogarth place it at the centre of his modern moral series about a young
man ruined by London society. The thesis combines considerations of longitude from plays,
poems, religious tracts, novels, prints, paintings and correspondence, alongside the archives
and instruments that recorded the search by the Board of Longitude. Useful parallels emerge
between the Board’s most famous applicant, John Harrison, and William Hogarth’s own
career.
I open with discussion of the place of the longitude problem, and navigational science more
generally, within London life and Hogarth’s works, arguing that London became Hogarth’s ‘
ship of fools,’ in need of guidance. I then consider three ways in which longitude was a ‘
problem.’ Visually, it presented new challenges about how to communicate contested ideas
on paper with words and images, through maps, illustrations and diagrams. These
considerations developed alongside contemporary concerns over copyright and patenting.
Mentally, longitude highlighted the complex boundary between impossible ‘projects,’ mad
schemes and ‘genius’ inventions, raising questions about the status of innovation and
originality. Socially, ‘the longitude’ articulated a problematic space between polite and
impolite science, which made it a useful concept with which to negotiate wider contemporary
social boundaries. The status of both women and instruments became key to these
discussions. In sum, the longitude problem, as the final image in the final plate of Hogarth’s
series, presented a means of orientating a disorientated Augustan society. What we might call
the longitude ‘moment’ meant that all these concerns coalesced into the single image of a
drawing on the wall of Bedlam.