Abstract

Onomasiological dictionaries, in which the vocabulary is arranged primarily according to thematic groups, played a major role within early modern lexicography. They were used in particular as travel vocabularies in order to procure a useful stock of basic terms while abroad and also belonged to prevalent modes of teaching in the humanistic school system, especially in elementary instruction. During the second half of the 17^th century a lasting change of knowledge transfer inside this type of dictionary occurred by including illustrations which permeate not only Johann Amos Comenius' Orbis sensualium pictus but also Johann Georg Seybold's Teutsch-Lateinisches Wörterbüchlein. Both works will be conceptually explicated against the background of traditional topical lexicography and it will be shown that in both works, which mark the starting point of the history of the pictorial dictionary in the German-speaking parts, different semantic purposes of illustrations correlates with distinct vocabulary-picture-relations.