The Massacre of the Innocents and The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt

Block books are an early form of letterpress printing in which text and illustrations were carved into the same block of wood. The technique was developed around 1450, at the same time as the art of typesetting. Analogous to a comic strip, biblical prophets are shown speaking by means of text bands. Despite the effective combination of word and image, block books were a short­lived phenomenon.