created 2025-04-03, & modified, =this.modified
rel: The Second Digital Turn - Design Beyond Intelligence by Mario Carpo
Bibliotheca universalis (1545–1549) was the first truly comprehensive “universal” listing of all the books of the first century of printing. It was an alphabetical bibliography that listed all the known books printed in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. It listed 10,000 titles by 1,800 authors.
It was organized by author, and provided brief commentaries on each work.
The Swiss scholar Conrad Gessner started to compile his extensive work on Bibliotheca universalis at the age of 25. He traveled to as many Italian and German libraries he could find, motivated by the loss of precious manuscripts by the destruction of the libraries.
At the time, he wrote “In truth I rejoice and thank God because I have finally gotten out of the labyrinth in which I was trapped for almost three years”.
The entry for Martin Luther, crossed out.
