Introduction These graphic touches were evidently important to Swedenborg. Although his
eighteen theological titles occupied twenty-five quarto volumes that range in
size from 23 to 695 pages, although these volumes came out in one of two cities
in two countries over a span of twenty-three years, whether long or short, early
or late, from London or Amsterdam, every single volume contained ornamentation.
Ninety-two different ornaments from six categories of ornamentation appear a
total of five hundred seventy times in the theological first editions.2 As those
editions comprise 7,296 pages in total, an ornament appears on average every
thirteen pages from one end of the set to the other.
The average volume contains twenty-three instances of ornamentation with a
minimum of two (Last Judgment, Intercourse between the Soul and Body)
and a maximum of seventy-five (Arcana Coelestia vol. 1) per volume. Many
of the ninety-two different ornaments are repeated. Each occurs on average on
six different pages of the first editions. If you were to leaf through Swedenborg's
first editions chronologically from start to finish you would see new ornaments
appearing with some regularity. Even towards the end of those 7,296 pages you
would find ornaments you had never seen before. Twenty-two of the twenty-five
volumes contain new ornaments, even small works like Brief Exposition
and each of the so called Four Doctrines, and volumes late in the eight
volume set of Arcana Coelestia. Only three volumes of Swedenborg's theological
first editions contain no new ornaments, all their ornaments being "recycled"
from earlier volumes (Last Judgment, White Horse, and Intercourse
between the Soul and Body). Even with these zeroes the average is four new
ornaments per volume with a maximum of fourteen. Nor are all the new ornaments
at the beginning of a work. Although the first five pages of a volume are generally
an ornamental hotbed, late in a given volume you would quite often come across
one you had never seen before. In fact two thirds of ornaments' first appearances
occur after the first five pages of their volumes; even some headpieces and
an initial first occur late in their volume (Headpieces 11, 12 and 16, and Initial
06).
The ornaments come in six different categories. The categories are quite distinct;
only three ornaments appear in more than one category, and they are all title
page ornaments that double as tailpieces (Title Page Ornaments 01, 03, and 04,
which double as Tailpieces 13, 15, and 16 respectively).
Next Page: Title Page Ornaments