
Historiated Initials from Andreas Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica - benbreen
http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbein-alf-vesalius.htm
======
DanAndersen
What a wonderful collection of illustrations! It's always a treasure to see a
site that has a niche, focused subject matter. There's an obvious sort of
whimsy and passion in how the site itself is implemented.

From the custom skeletal hand mouse cursor, to the crossbones used as borders
for some images [0], to the mouseovers on some of the initials where the
letter is photoshopped out to show the background [1], to the fact that the
site still has a guestbook [2]... there's a great character to the site that
makes it enjoyable to interact with. Much more engaging than the overpolished
style of so much online nowadays.

I also thought it was interesting to note the practice of almost-copies of
certain woodcut illustrations over the centuries [0]. In our era of trivial
lossless copying of digital data, it's easy to forget how much had to be done
by hand in the past.

[0]
[http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbein26.htm](http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbein26.htm)
[1]
[http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbeina.htm](http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbeina.htm)
[2] [http://www.dodedans.com/Ebook01.php](http://www.dodedans.com/Ebook01.php)

~~~
benbreen
I agree, I really miss the personalized style of a lot of the niche sites of
the early internet. I find that history-related websites often maintain that
style, for instance the Alchemy Website. [1]

By the way, I looked for awhile to try to figure out what year the page is
from, because I very much doubt it's from 2018 or even from the 2010s
necessarily. First guestbook entries are from 2001. (I miss guestbooks!)

[1] [http://www.alchemywebsite.com](http://www.alchemywebsite.com)

