#Movable Mondays Series: Astronomicum Caesareum [video]

As children, most of us have had the pleasure of owning a “pop-up” book, where pages are engineered to rise three-dimensionally when opened, or we have paged through those books in libraries or bookstores.

However, the original audience was adults. The earliest known structures, known as movable books, date as far back as the 1200s and were used primarily in the study of the sciences. Their movable structures could be found in the pages of astronomy books like “Astronomicum Caesareum”— featured in the first of a nine-part video series called #MovableMondays produced by University Libraries that can be found on the Libraries’ social media accounts including: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The video series highlights everything from the original versions of historic movable books to contemporary reprints found within the Rare Book Collection in the Libraries’ Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections.

According to Miriam Intrator, special collections librarian, the Libraries’ copy of “Astronomicum Caesareum,” (1967) is a full-color reproduction that was produced in Leipzig, Germany, and “offers the experience of the original [1540] work with its extraordinary hand-colored woodcuts, multi-layered volvelles and other moveable parts, and astronomical observations.”

Intrator continued saying the Libraries’ copy contains “reproductions of early examples of complex, multi-layered volvelles, or movable revolving discs. Although this book is a reproduction, it is faithful to the original in terms of size, color and even the damage that has occurred over time.”

Stay tuned for each new bi-weekly video offered through the #MovableMondays series—Jan. 28 will feature “The Daily Express Children’s Annual.”