Album

Album (Lat., 'white'), amongst the Romans, was a white tablet overlaid with gypsum, on which were written the Annales Maximi of the pontifex, edicts of the prætor, and rules relative to civil matters. It was so called, either because it was composed of a white material, or because the letters used were of that colour. In the middle ages, the word was used to denote any list, catalogue, or register, whether of saints, soldiers, or civil functionaries. In the universities on the Continent, the list of the names of the members is called the album. But its popular signification in modern times is that of a book for containing photographs, or a blank book for a drawing-room table, and intended to receive fugitive pieces of verse, or the signatures of distinguished persons, or sometimes merely drawings, prints, marine plants, postage stamps, and the like. Another modern use of the word is as applied to collections of engravings of specimen pictures of distinguished artists—as a Murillo album, or a Rembrandt album.