I was at the Wellcome Library in London this afternoon, spending time with Descrizione
del Sacro Monte della Verna (catalogue entry here), a very large book of etchings related to Monte Penna, most famous as the place where St. Francis of Assisi received stigmata. Printed early in the seventeenth century in Florence, the book is a bit unlike any other sets of etchings I've seen before -- first, because several of the images have flaps, and second, because those flaps are rocks, and tend to be inexplicably placed. Like this large rock in the middle of a scene of other rocks, which lifts to reveal...
...more rocks!
Or this other oblong rock, floating over other rocks...
...rock, paper.......
I know St. Francis worked water from rocks; but what is a big boulder -- wider than both the page and the room it occupies -- doing inside?
Some related images can be found here.
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