When was naturalis historia written

Which one of the following options does not match? Which of the following piece of literature was NOT written in Sanskrit? Tamil B. Hindi C. Sanskrit D. Who is the pioneer of the Social Contract Theory?

Tulsidas wrote Ramcharitmanas during the reign of. The famous political book. Which one of the following is the correct set of contingencies identified by William Beveridge in his comprehensive social security scheme?

More World History Questions Q1. Which of the following has credit to give the idea of liberty, equality, fraternity?

Industrial Revolution started in which of the following country? Where did the Inca civilization begin? For example, the annotators used underlining and brackets to highlight passages they saw to be important, or that they wished to discuss further in a longer marginal note. The nature and content of the marginal notes, indexes, and glosses are what really establish the different annotators as individuals.

Although their identities remain unclear at best, they reveal themselves in what they chose to make note of and how they do it; this information has been used to give them nicknames that, while not terribly creative, serve to trace their actions through the text. For example, the Red Indexer acts exactly as their nickname implies: they have thoroughly indexed the book, pulling out more granular subject headings that are not mentioned in the chapter titles. Understanding that the German glossed the Red Indexer, rather than vice versa, situates the German after the Red Indexer on a time line.

Four other annotators occupy the rest of the timeline, but two in particular stand out: Bracket and the Editor.

Bracket is responsible for the longest marginal notes, which run the gamut from cross-referencing other works that Pliny has cited, to adding detail about subjects mentioned, and even to drawing diagrams of concepts that Pliny describes.

This annotator tends to enclose one side of these notes in a bracket that points back towards the passage being referenced—hence the name. But what is interesting about these two annotators is not what we understand about them, but what we do not.

This is in reference to the inevitability and acceptance of death, which is a heavy topic to refer to in the margin of a chapter about caring for grapes and the diseases of trees. Although its purpose remains mysterious, the fact that Bracket included it gives us a glimpse of other works that they may have been reading at the time, which in turn bolsters our understanding of what texts were available to and being used by literate people.

One correction, though, points to preparation rather than pedantry: a simple suggestion of using an abbreviation rather than the full Latin word quae. The suggestion of an abbreviation amongst numerous spelling corrections points to a person who is concerned not only with accurate spelling, but with brevity. Comparing the corrections in this copy to later editions may reinforce this theory, although since the Historia has only rarely been out of print since the 15th century, there will be a lot of material to work through.

As it has been rebound at least twice, it has lost a great deal of provenance information, such as bookplates, shelfmarks, or ownership inscriptions. Continued research will enable this book, and its annotators, to tell even more of its story.

During digitization, the book had to be carefully positioned and monitored on a page-by-page basis to make sure that as much text as possible was being captured. Cropping near the gutter was especially difficult because there was very little space between text on the relevant page that needed to be kept in and text from the opposing page that needed to be cropped out for the sake of readability. While manual post-processing work is employed during the digitization of any book, the proliferation of marginalia in this volume added an extra layer of complexity to the digitization of Naturalis Historia.

Thanks to the patience and tireless dedication of the staff at Smithsonian Libraries, anyone can now freely access and marvel at the incredible history represented in this natural history treasure. References [1] Naturalis Historia, Book 1. More thorough readers may notice, however, descriptions such as that of headless people with eyes on their shoulders. A number of such bizarre passages show that Pliny and his contemporaries did not test all 37, entries.

This project was carried out using specialist imaging and handling equipment to ensure that no physical damage occurred to the year-old book. According to Andrea Hart, Head of Special Collections in the Museum Library, the remarkably well-preserved book 'has lasted longer than many of the books which have been printed within the past 50 years. Much of the paper nowadays is made from wood pulp and has been chemically treated, as opposed to the rag paper which was used for Historia Naturalis.

Ancient copies of Historia Naturalis require careful handling. This volume is from the second edition, printed in Not only does digitising Historia Naturalis benefit online visitors, it provides the Museum with a copy for preservation purposes. This digitisation project was part of the Museum's Digital Collections Programme , which aims to make available the information found within the collections, from specimens to labels and archives.

The digitised information can now reach researchers, data analysts and citizen scientists all over the world. Ongoing projects include digitising Mesozoic-Era collections as well as more than half a million butterflies and moths from the British Isles. The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that digitise biodiversity literature and archival material for all to access.

The Museum Library has so far contributed to the BHL 8, volumes from 1, titles, amounting to almost four million pages. The original copy of Historia Naturalis will feature in the Museum's international tour of some of its treasures , which begins in in Tokyo. A selection of the Museum's most highly prized works of natural history literature are featured in this beautiful book and print collection.

It is a detail that most Museum visitors miss, but the Hintze Hall ceiling is a work of art in itself. Library curator Andrea Hart talks about this collection of the Museum's most highly prized natural history literature. Get email updates about our news, science, exhibitions, events, products, services and fundraising activities.