I’ve just been reading with pleasure a facsimile of a little book called Orbis Sensualium Pictus, or Visible World, by Johannes Amos Comenius, as published in London in 1672. Dear old Comenius (1592-1670), a Bohemian by origin, sought a universal sharing of knowledge, hoping that ‘scarecrows may be taken away out of wisdoms Gardens’. His picture book, first published in 1658, with its captions in Latin and native tongues, would, he thought, ‘entice witty Children to it, that they may not conceit a torment to be in the School, but dainty-fare’.
Poor Comenius had the misfortune to get caught up in the Swedish-Polish war, suffering the destruction of his books and manuscripts in 1656. His Visible World survived him, and contains the caption ‘The heavens rotate around the earth, which stands in the centre’ acquired the qualification ‘as earlier men believed.
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