The Visible World in Pictures

…book, Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658; The Visible World in Pictures), was popular in Europe for two centuries and was the forerunner of the illustrated schoolbook of later times. It consisted of pictures illustrating Latin sentences, accompanied by vernacular translations. For example, the chapter “The Head and the Hand” began with…

His Orbis Sensualium Pictus (“Picture of the Sensual World”), published in 1658, was profusely illustrated with drawings, each playing an important role in teaching the lesson at hand. Comenius was followed by other great educators, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and J.H. Pestalozzi, who advocated the…

The Visible World in Pictures (1658), which remained popular in Europe for two centuries, attempted to dramatize Latin through pictures illustrating Latin sentences, accompanied by one or two vernacular translations.

…published Orbis Sensualium Pictus (The Visible World in Pictures, 1659), a teaching device that was also the first picture book for children. It embodied a novel insight: children’s reading should be of a special order because children are not scaled-down adults. But the conscious, systematic, and successful exploitation of…