Bavarian Wappenbuch

"Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled,
hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned,
fat-papped, stands forth, his loins and genitals tightened
into a pair of black bathing bagslops."

This is what you might call, a lazy post. I've had these escutcheons, these coats of arms, these emblazoned shields, these heraldic miniatures even, for quite a while, and I like them more than the inevitable culling that would be required if I had to pick and choose a couple to throw into a multifarious post.

This Coat of Arms book of the Bavarian Aristocracy ('Wappenbuch des Churbayrischen Adels') is online at the Bavarian State Library (click 'miniaturansicht'). The title page (beautiful calligraphic flourishes) informs us that this particular version from 1700 was copied from the original 1560 manuscript. [Thanks Klaus]

The quote at the top of the page has nothing whatsoever to do with this wappenbuch and only a very tenuous connection to heraldry. It comes from the long and outrageous Rabelaisian 'Circe' episode in James Joyce's 'Ulysses', in which the whole book is played out as a sort of dreamt pantomime. It was within this magical and mystifying chapter that I first became interested in the language of heraldry, which is in some ways taken (in conjunction with pseudo-stage directions) to the very extreme in Joyce's little flight of fancy. But it might just be me.

Flight to the Antipodes

At once both a proto-science fiction book and also a member of the utopia genre of literature, this exceedingly rare 4-volume work from 1781, 'Découverte Australe par un Homme Volant, ou Le Dédale Français' (Southern Discovery by a Flying Man, or The French Dedalus) is online at BNF (only the illustrations - I've posted all but 1 of them, I think).

The very prolific author and printer, Nicolas-Edmé Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806), was something of an eccentric or even neurotic character who recorded his own libertine life in many of his works. These included the first real outline of shoe fetishism and a social commentary on prostitution among a diverse range of subject matter. His literary audacity led to his being branded "the Rousseau of the gutter" and "the Voltaire of the chambermaids." I get the feeling from the scant information around online that Restif was, to all intents, an agitator for social reform and his writings would be regarded as very tame today.

The protagonist in 'Découverte Australe par un Homme Volant', Victorin, apparently spends the first third of the book studying insects and designing wing models so that he can whisk his Christine away to a place where their love won't be forbidden.

"He locates an inaccessible mountain, stocks it with the basic necessities (plants, animals, servants), and finally swoops down and carries Christine off. (He seems to have neglected to tell her that he was planning to do this, but fortunately she proves sympathetic. They are married by a priest that he also had the foresight to fly off with.)"

Their journey takes them to the archipelago of Megapatagon which is on the opposite side of the world to France, halfway between Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica. So opposite in fact that in the utopian society our heroes found, the language is backwards french, clothes are topsy-turvy (the shoe fetish comes out in hats with shoe qualities...or so they say) and even the capital is Sirap. {I am guessing this allows Restif some satirical distance to comment on perceived deficiencies in his own world}

And obviously, from the point of view of the intriguing engravings above, Victorin and Christine encounter all manner of weird and wonderful 'humans': frogmen, sheepmen, hairymen, elephantmen, dogmen, birdmen, snakemen and other Swiftian imaginary types (mouseover images above for french captions).

• There is no definitive source online to read in relation to this bizarre work. But these links contain snippets about the book: i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii and an excerpt (translation).
• In relation to science fiction: a, b.
• Site devoted to Restif (I haven't looked through this french site at all).
• Kinda sorta related: 1, 2, 3 (nsfw), 4, 5, 6.
  

The Poster Silo

In the early 1990s the town of Chaumont (S.E. of Paris) decided to use the dormant agricultural silos of the Haute-Marne region of France as a shelter for old books and posters from a former library. In 1994 La maison du Livre et de l’Affiche (The House of the Book and the Poster) opened its doors.

The core of their collection consists of some 5000 Fin de Siècle posters which were assembled by the town Mayor in the late 19th century. The Silo is considered an international centre with respect to theatre, dance and opera graphic arts.

3000 of these posters are available online via la médiathèque site of the Silo ('affiches anciennes'). It is a 'servlet' arrangement so it will time out if you don't keep looking around and you can't open multiple tabs/windows. I found clicking on the titles beneath the image and then the 'TIF' image link at the bottom of the subsequent page the easiest way to get to the larger versions (which do open in a new tab/window).

Note there are metadata categories once you click through - meaning you can look at just circus or just theatre or eccentric etc posters. I've only seen the first 1000 posters and of those there were perhaps 3 that I was sure I had seen previously. I think the above selection is a fair representation - a lot of circus and theatre, with regular eccentric pictures, occasional sketches and rarely, there are things like art book images. Overall this is a fantastic site but many of the works are quite dark so all of the images above were tweaked at least a little bit. Click for full size versions and mouseover for titles.