Christoph Jamnitzer's Neuw Grotteßken Buch, Cosmography, and Early Modern Ornament

Prefaced by a narrative about the cosmographo Christopher Columbus, Christoph Jamnitzer's Neuw Grotteßken Buch (1610) offers an important means to understand how the art of decorative printmaking was construed in terms of contemporary cosmography. By studying the book's grotesque imagery in light of the language of its introductory text, it is possible to think about ornament in its early seventeenth-century author's terms, and to reflect on the genre outside the problems of style and function that have preoccupied scholars since the nineteenth century. Christoph's book provides access to features of a previously overlooked discourse on early modern ornament.