Verso

Incunables (or incunabula) are books printed before 1501, in the infancy of printing. The term, from Latin, means literally "swaddling clothes." Johann Gutenberg of Germany is credited with inventing the basics of printing in the West in 1440

Huntington curators call the second half of the 18th century England's "golden age of mezzotint." Invented in the 1600s, the engraving technique was little used until it exploded in popularity in the mid 1700s. It employs a metal plate covered with fine dots, or a "burr," which prints as a deep velvety black.

This photograph and illustration depict the same scene—black soldiers undergoing punishment on the "wooden horse." The illustration comes from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (Dec. 10, 1884), and the illustrator assures

The exhibition "Pre-Raphaelites and Their Followers: British and American Drawings from The Huntington's Collections" traces the mid-19th century artistic movement known as Pre-Raphaelitism

Last summer, I worked as an intern in the manuscripts department, exploring the Library's large collection of history of science materials. Now and then, a nonpaper item would appear among the boxes and boxes of manuscripts.

"There are in Los Angeles a couple of rare and extraordinary treasures in the history of Chinese culture," said director Peter Sellars, in a presentation at The Huntington on Tuesday evening. "One is The Huntington's Chinese garden. The other is this woman."

What do you do when someone retires after dedicating 28 years to the Gardens? This was the situation last week when Clair Martin stepped down from his position as the Ruth B. and E. L. Shannon Curator of the Rose and Perennial Gardens.

The Huntington would like to invite applications for Urban Ecosystem Agriculture, a train-the-trainer course to be held between September 3, 2011 and January 21, 2012. This series is designed to empower Master Gardeners and garden educators with a practical knowledge base of techniques