Orbis Sensualium Pictus

Interior page of Orbis Sensualiam Pictus

By Johann Amos Comenius, London, 1659 (1658)

Orbis Sensualium Pictus

(The Pictured World)

Written by Johann Amos Comenius

London, J. Kirton, 1659 (1658)

3.5" x 5.5"

From the Collection of an Anonymous Donor

Interior page of Orbis Sensualiam Pictus

By Johann Amos Comenius, London, 1659 (1658)

Among the very first illustrated books published expressly for children, this stout volume first compiled in 1658 by renowned Moravian educator Johann Amos Comenius is the precursor to modern day junior picture encyclopedias. The original Nuremberg edition appeared in Latin and German. The first Latin-English edition followed one year later.

Comenius had advanced ideas about education that John Locke and others would later amplify. He recognized the impact of illustration on children’s understanding and believed that learning should build outward from the familiar. Although spiritual matters received due attention in Comenius’s “pictured world,” his most famous book gave pride of place to worldly matters—geography, weather, plants, animals, and machinery, among others.