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Spanish calligrapher and woodcutter, Pedro Diaz Morante (1565-1636), devised a new system for teaching cursive writing which was released in five parts between (I think) 1615 and 1631. Were these wonderfully ornate and quirky flourishes in page image format and not merely microfilm copies, I would have quite happily devoted a whole post to them (the white background figures above were cleaned up quite a bit).

There are four pages of thumbnail images from 'Nueva Arte de Escreuir' at the University of Seville. Incidentally, Morante was said to have been able to write equally well with either hand, a feat that had him brought before before the Spanish Inquisition at one stage. [see also: Paperpenalia for calligraphic motifs by Morante (and others); and if you read Spanish, the Miguel D Cervantes Digital Library have an illustrated html version of 'Arte de la Escritura y de la Caligrafía : Teoría y Práctica' by Rufino Blanco y Sánchez (1902)]











"Martin Frobenius Ledermüller (1719-69) was a German physician and keeper of the natural history collection of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Colmbach." "[He] settled down in Nuremberg in 1749, after having been wandering about for many years as a soldier and a secretary, and started his valuable microscopical observations under the protection and direction of the famous Dr. C.J. Trew."

The slender volume about barley (and?) from which the above illustrations were taken is titled: 'Phisicalisch mikroskopische Vorstellung und Zergliederung einer angeblichen Rokenpflanze, das Staudten, Stek- oder Gerstenkorn' and is online at the Universities of Strasbourg. [quotes taken from the Microscopy editions page at Antiquariaat Junk, which has a few Ledermüller books]









'Mémoire Aptérologique' (1804) from the French doctor and entomologist specialising in spiders and mites, Jean Frédéric Hermann - at the Universities of Strasbourg (nine plates in total, at the back of the book)




'Chemical Atlas or The Chemistry of Familiar Objects' by Edward Livingston Youmans (1855) at Strasbourg Universities.








Andrew Pritchard was more of an optician, spectaclemaker and retailer of microscopes rather than a biologist, per se. He collaborated with C R Goring to publish a number of works on the microscope in the 1830s including '300 animalcules Infusoires, Dessinés à l'Aide du Microscope' (1838) at the Universities of Strasbourg, which I'm fairly sure is the French translation of 'The Natural History of Animalcules: containing Descriptions of all the Known Species of Infusoria with Instructions for Procuring and Viewing Them' from 1834 (on googlebooks). Very reminiscent of the great Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (also).





My notes merely say(s): "alchemy"; but I know it was uploaded in the last few weeks to one of the German University libraries. Beyond that...I don't recall.








The Babylon and Egyptian illustrations were engraved by Philip Galle after designs by Marten van Heemskerck for a 1572 series on the seven wonders of the world. [from Virtuelle Kupferstichkabinett]





This is by far the most striking image from a suite of bird prints by the fabulously named Balthasar Caymox (approx. 1610-1625) [from Virtuelle Kupferstichkabinett]

Master of the Burin - The Book Illustrations of John Buckland-Wright
(1897-1954) at the Otago University Library in New Zealand.

My notes say: "Caspar Barthen Deutscher Phoenix Franckfuhrt am Mayn - Aubry, 1626" and it's likely from either HAB or MDZ libraries in Germany; but it's newly online and resistant to searching. This was the singular worthy image from the book from memory anyway.

Castor Bean - Ricinus communis

Pasque Flower - Pulsatilla hirsutissima

The University of Colorado Herbarium has a collection of forty-one botanical watercolors painted by the artist Ida Hrubesky Pemberton during the 1930s and 1940s.

Psalm Eight © Debra Band - Judaic Art | Biblical calligraphy. [via]

Addit: Debra Band will give an illustrated
lecture at the Library of Congress on January 17, 2008.

"Aurelio O'Brien transports us to a future where technology has been replaced by biology in the form of genetically engineered CreatureComforts™" - and uses a fun and novel approach to showcase his book on the internet.

Cropped image taken from 'Homer Nach Antiken Gezeichnet' 1801
out of the archaeological collection at the University of Heidelberg.

'Indianer von Topinambous' by Joachim du Viert, 1613.
[from Virtuelle Kupferstichkabinett]

More of the highly stylised renderings of the Brazilian native Tupinamba tribe that served as one of the oft-used visual models for understanding the New World*.











These three woodcuts are from 'Die Türckisch Chronica' (The Turkish Chronicle, funnily enough) by Johannes Adelphus from 1516 (2nd Ed. First: published in 1513) at the Bavarian State Library in Munich. Adelphus was a humanist doctor from Alsace whose book documents the Ottoman Empire from its beginnings up to 1500, with a special emphasis on the Crusades.

Asherbooks articulate the 'something' that drew my attention to the illustrations when I briefly scanned the book: "Some woodcuts show a perspective and style reminiscent of mediaeval art, while others are good examples of Renaissance work showing modern perspective and rendering each figure with personal character."








The figures of Jupiter and Mercury from one manuscript version of the traditional iconographic theme of 'planetenkinder' (children of the planets) [previously: Planetary Arts; The Medical Astrology Calendar of 1487].

As I understand it, the deification of the seven classical planets manifested itself in Germany in the Medieval Housebook ('Das Mittelalterliche Hausbuch') in which allegorical pictures showed how each of the planets had an influence on particular types of people and activities. The planets owed their individual characteristics to the pagan deities with which they had been associated since ancient times, and also to their peculiar movements and behaviour in the heavens.

Thus saturn, being the furthest, coldest and therefore slowest moving body, is associated with melancholy, old age and illness and so on. The present ink(?) drawings are from a set of seven images from the 15th century scanned by Arend Smilde from his local University Library (Utrecht presumably). [See the translated German wikipedia site on planetenkinder]

'Nouvelle carte d'Europe dressée pour 1870 -
Carte drôlatique d'Europe pour 1870'
- political cartographic caricature by Paul Hadol. (spliced from screencaps)

George Glazer Gallery translate the caption as: "England enraged forgets Ireland but still keeps it in her power. Spain & Portugal smoke away lazily. France tries to overthrow Prussia who advances one hand on Holland & knee over Austria. Italy advises Bismark to keep off. Corsica & Sardinia laugh on at all. Denmark hopes to recover Holstein. Turkey is drowsily awaking from smoke. Sweden crouching like a panther. Russia a beggar trying for anything to fill his basket."

The map comes from Beeldbank Musea from Belgium - an amalgamation of pictures (prints, numismatics, furniture, books, sculpture, textiles and more) from Antwerp Museums. No english is no problem - an easy and worthy browse.



I found this at the above Antwerp site too and went to the trouble of splicing it together from screencaps and then discovered a better version (the image above) at the Rijksmuseum (bottom of page). This monster insect engraving stands out amongst a stylised but otherwise fairly unremarkable fauna series by Joos de Bosscher, 1620.





I've saved this 19th century image for a couple of months waiting for the full exhibition site to go live at the University of Oxford, and although progress seems to be stalled, the site is still worth visiting : "Small Worlds: the Art of the Invisible is an exhibition of the miniature world of microscopic specimens, revealing the strange and wonderful contents of the Museum’s collection of some ten thousand slides."

'The French Lady in London, or the Head Dress for the Year 1771'
(anonymous, after Samuel Hieronymus Grimm)

Vive la Différence! - The English and French Stereotype in Prints, 1720 to 1815 at the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge [via gmtPlus9(-15)]





From the fantastic and exemplary John Tenniel and the American Civil War - Political Cartoons from the Civil War site. "A Free-Use Education Resource" [via Mefi] {Tenniel did the original Alice in Wonderland drawings}

Cutaway sketch of the Church of the Abbey of St Louis
in Metz by Johann Wolff (after JF Blondel) - 1790.

1788 sketch by Johann Wolff - French church in Potsdam.

The Kassel Museum in Germany has an online collection of some 4000 architectural drawings (plans, garden layouts and sketches) from the 17th to 20th centuries. Browse by architect/designer or by city (across Europe). (click 'Startseite')

Yesterday's Airports of Today!
A 1935 model for an underground air terminal.

From the excellent new Smithsonian website - America by Air - coinciding with a current exhibtion charting the history of commercial aviation. [via Metroblogging DC - Brownpau visited the exhibition last weekend and has posted a flickr photo set]


Other things...

• Matt from Rashomon has created a wonderful short film using the sketches of Cyprian Norwid from the Polish Digital Library, accompanied by Chopin.
• In parallel news, NYPL Labs announced that the NYPL Digital Gallery can now be accessed as editable clips through the Kaltura group web video platform(warning: sound). Let the mashups begin!
• User shothotbot has gone to an amazing amount of trouble to arrange all the AskMetafilter questions relating to books into a single, logical wiki page: ReadMe.
• 'Used Books Marking Readers in Renaissance England' by William H. Sherman (December 2007 - University of Pennsylvania Press). Looks good. (A non-advertorial moment)
• A (kind of) advertorial moment: while getting on anyone's junkmail list is a fate to be avoided at all costs, I can say in all honesty that I'm quite happy to receive copies of the publications released by Princeton Architectural Press [previously]. Their latest offering, 'Around the World: The Grand Tour in Photo Albums', traces the development of the travel photo album, with oodles of early 20th century exotic photographs and ephemera assembled by authors Barbara Levine and Kirsten Jensen. It is a beautiful book. [papressblog]
• The French National Library (BNF) have a new english Gallica website in beta release - about which I know almost nothing because I haven't really looked (yet).
• Articulate is ABC News Online's daily take on arts news and events in Australia and throughout the world.
• IZO - Russian Art Scene (in English).
• I haven't had much of a look around the UK Government Art Collection Online Database that features 7000 paintings, drawings, sculpture and textile images - that otherwise live in government buildings in UK and abroad. [via things magazine]
• Addit: Exploring the Early Americas exhibition has begun at the Library of Congress [Online Exhibition].
  

Kircher's Magnetism

Frontispiece: "A magnetic Habsburg eagle. The Latin inscription around the eagle’s feet “Et Boreae et Austri-acus” is a play on words linking the compass needle (“the needle of both North and South” to the house of Austria (“Austriacus”)."













































"Other inventions of Kircher’s also appear to have come under suspicion of demonic magic, including the magnetic anemoscope that he built in Malta, while he was supposed to be providing spiritual guidance to Landgrave Ernst of Hessen-Darmstadt, relied, like many Kircherian machines, on a hidden magnet. The magnet, rotated by a wind-vane, caused a figure of Aeolius, the god of winds, suspended in a glass sphere, to point to the direction of the wind marked on the outside of the sphere. Some of the Knights of Malta who witnessed Kircher’s machine apparently suggested that it must contain a real demon, and Kircher, yet again, had to take pains to demonstrate that his brand of magic was entirely natural."

The Magnetic Oracle

"Kepler, expanding on Gilbert's speculation, described the sun as a huge magnet, whose rotation on its axis caused the earth and planets (themselves smaller magnets) to move around it in orbits. Kircher disproved this by experimenting with actual magnets, and observing that rotation of a large central magnet actually caused a sympathetic axial rotation in its otherwise stationary satellites. On the basis of this phenomenon, Kircher devised a device for 'magnetic hydromancy' in which small wax figures, embedded with magnets and suspended in water-filled globes, could be made to spell out specific messages or forecasts from symbols and letters printed on the surface of their vessels. Controlled by a hand-cranked rotating central magnet, this mechanically simulated divination device, bearing the Hermetic motto 'Nature Rejoices in Nature', epitomizes Kircher's unique blend of skepticism towards paranormal activities and delight in the underlying mysteries of seemingly mundane reality."

Sunflower clock

"To illustrate his belief in the magnetic relationship between the sun and the vegetable kingdom, Kircher designed this heliotropic sunflower clock by attaching a sunflower to a cork and floating it in a reservoir of water. As the blossom rotated to face the sun, a pointer through its center indicated the time on the inner side of a suspended ring. Kircher claimed that it didn't work well because enclosing it in a glass case would block the sun's attractive force, and that it was 'therefore susceptible to inaccuracies due to the wind'."



In the 16th and 17th centuries (mostly), one of the strangest known medical or psychological illnesses manifested in Southern Italy, centred around the coastal town of Taranto. A syndrome known as tarantism (or dancing mania) in which victims (often young women) displayed unusual symptoms that were attributed to a bite from a tarantula (actually, a wolf spider: Lycosa tarentula) was first reported in the 14th century. Once bitten, a person became lethargic and dizzy with feelings of anguish, strangely mixed with an increased libido and a bizarre frenzied dance compulsion.

Although it has been fairly described as a form of mass hysteria (the spider was more of a symbolic accessory) relating to the mix of traditional pagan-religious culture of the local area and periodic suppression orders against some earth magic practices, it is still known to occur today and wasn't even properly studied until the mid-20th century. Anyway ... Athanasius Kircher and others saw specific dance music (good magnetic vibrations) as being the cure and he includes in this picture part of a score - 'Antidotum Tarantula' - of the recommended tarantella - I believe he expands on this later in his 'Musurgia Universalis' tome. [I can see emergency bracelets with "In case of spider bite, play music" or ambulance vans ferrying musical quartets]


Can there be too much Athanasius Kircher? I don't think so. And particularly not when more of his original works come to be accessible online in good quality page image format. They are just so well stocked with eclectic and perplexing images. There will undoubtedly be more.

• 'Magnes Siue De Arte Magnetica Opvs Tripartitvm' 1643 is online at Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. (It's the 2nd edition of his original 1631 book known as 'Ars Magnesia', essentially his first published book)
• The above images (plus a bunch more not seen) were saved to this Webshots album. A few of them are the large versions but most are just of regular dimensions. The page numbers are in the alt-tags above (right click the image: properties).
• Biographies: here and here.
• 'Between the Demonic and the Miraculous: Athanasius Kircher and the Baroque Culture of Machines' by MJ Gorman (there's a reason I keep linking to this).
• 'Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything', 2004 Ed. Paula Findlen - there are some reasonable chunks viewable at google books.
• Previously: Sampling Kircher; Musurgia Universalis; Connecting with China; Artificial Magic.

Insignia Neapolitanorum

'Insignia nobilium Neapolitanorum et Genuensium' - 15th century at Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek [click: 'Miniaturansicht']. The book to consult no doubt, if you're looking for Italian car medallion design ideas.

The only background to this album of family crests of the noble houses in the Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Genoa is some notes about the restoration of the manuscript on this translated page.

Bonus: 'Insignia nobilium Veronensium, Vicentinorum' - from the 16th century.

Laxton Open Field Survey Map

[Full Size picture -- 770kb/2400x2000 -- click '+' sign below image]

'A plat and description of the whole mannor & Lordship of Laxton with Laxton Moorehouse in ye county of Nottingham and also of the mannor & Lordship of Kneesall lying adiacent to ye aforesaid mannor of Laxton', by Mark Pierce, 1635.


This map is actually in nine sheep skin segments which I've spliced together. There was some poetic licence taken in getting the borders to line up: this just means I made some adjustments to the non-map areas to get the best fit. Of course, the act of splicing will have introduced its own level of imprecision. I mention this so that when you play with the google maps version below you don't draw the conclusion at times that Mark Pierce was anything but a first class cartographer - any occasional (and they are minor, I think) anomalies are at least as likely due to my own creative abilities with the stupid.





In the 13th century, when Robin Hood was allegedly active, his fabled Sherwood Forest haunt (which at that time covered about a quarter of the County of Nottinghamshire) was within the administrative control of the nearby town of Laxton. The town was already well established when the Domesday Book* - the great census/survey of 1086 - was compiled, and unearthed Roman artifacts from local fields push the human history of the area back another six hundred years or more.

But it's not the forest, nor even the legendary forest hero, that makes Laxton a location of significant geohistorical importance and a worthy subject for a post.

The town happens to be the only remaining site in England which still operates a medieval open field farming system. This rather esoteric accolade isn't readily apparent if you pass by the local fields however. There's nothing at close quarters in a visual sense that communicates any sort of obvious specialness, and even farming experts have to keep a watchful eye out for the tell tale ridge and furrow features that distinguish parts of the locality as being unique. The farming system has practical consequences for the immediate environment of course but it's more conceptually about the land management governance - making map overlays and comparison the prime observational perspective.

Basically, open farming refers to a cooperative or communal arrangement whereby land for cultivation is divided into strips and allotted to tenant farmers who each follow a strict annual crop rotation. There are no fences or hedges to delineate segmental ownership and each tenant farmer has strips in the three surviving open farming fields in Laxton (nine hundred acres in total - as at 1902, which I'm fairly sure is still current), giving all of them varying grades of soil quality and favouring no farmer in particular. Traditionally, a manorial magistrate divided the land up each year (about thirty strips per family) and made decisions on the frequent disputes about encroachment onto a neighbour's territory.

In a general sense, development of the strips for open farming probably relates to the types of clay soils common in North Western Europe that required use of a heavy plough pulled by a team of oxen. It was just logistically easier to plough long strips for an extended distance without having to turn the beasts around as often. The animal teams were expensive so they would be shared between village families. Et voila! Open farming agriculture.

"In Tudor times, the larger and more influential landlords and tenant farmers consolidated the tiny, dispersed holdings into fields surrounded by hedgerows. In the 18th century, new farming systems and advances in farm machinery propelled enclosure, keeping lawyers and surveyors busy and converting a large part of the English peasantry into landless farm labourers and factory fodder for the Industrial Revolution."

The remarkable survival of this anachronistic practice in Laxton is due not so much to a desire to hold onto traditional farming methods (although that ultimately became the paramount consideration in the 20th century, prompting specific heritage protection and governance laws), but to the fact that the two major landowners, the Earl of Scarborough and Earl Manvers, couldn't reach agreement on how and where any land enclosures should take place in the early 19th century.

From 1902: "There are many old words in use in the parish in connection with these fields, which no doubt are becoming obsolete, such as “sick” (or syke), “stenting,” &c. The former is a grass baulk, the latter the place where two “lands” abut on each other, and the person who ploughs last turns his plough and horses on the other man’s land, which is already ploughed, much to his detriment. How they all know their proper pieces is a marvel. There is an old saying in Laxton, that if you are first in the field with your harvest cart and last with your muck cart or plough, you are sure to be right. They are a peculiar people. The village is divided by the church into what are known as “up the street” and “down the street,” and these two parts are distinctly antagonistic to each other. The only time they combine is when a stranger ventures to take land in the parish, then they all pick him like a flock of crows."

View Larger Google map - toggle the overlay on and off

[note: if there appears to be a section not loading on the map, it's probably a glitch in the google servers (!) - it has been loading all sections perfectly the last few days. It doesn't really hamper viewing in any event.]
For anyone who has the Google Earth program, load this kmz file which will allow you to make the overlaid map fade in and out - this is the best way to examine both the accuracy of the original map and also get some indication of the changes to the general topography of the region that have occurred over the last ~600 years. [At least, I hope it works. It was my first attempt so unless I've been loading the cached local version from my computer, everything should be sweet.]




For the majority of the time that I've been assembling this post (read: playing with google earth) I didn't really know which bit of the Pierce map represented the open farming fields. I had thought that they were adjacent to each other in that humped shape in the centre of the above image that includes what I imagined were the characteristic strips. It was that odd shaped field that I used as the feature for alignment of the overlay. It turns out I was both right and wrong..

It was just prior to posting this that I started to have a look around for some photographs (there are very few) and found the legend below. In a perfect world I would have tried to marry the legend up to the Pierce map from 1635 and to the satellite views. Alas, I'm too lazy by half. But it's a helpful indicator to bear in mind while looking at the overlay and sat-map.

[courtesy DodoPappa]

'A Booke of Survaye of the Whole Mannor and Lordshipp of Laxton with Laxton Moorehouse in the County of Nottingham' --- 'Manuscript terrier describing land tenure in the villages of Laxton and Kneesall, Nottinghamshire': also produced in 1635 to accompany the Pierce map.

• The Pierce Laxton Map and 'Booke of Survaye' are both hosted by the Oxford Digital Library: 'Bringing Laxton to Life: A Unique Insight into Feudal England' (click 'titles').
• 'Open Society' by Roly Smith in The Guardian, 2000. [single page print version]
• Laxton Village Survey.
• 'Farm for Rent, Would Suit Time Traveller' in The Independent, 1996.
• 'Autumn Excurision' - Laxton IN: Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 1902. [from the interesting Nottingham History site]
• Wikipedia: Open Field System; Laxton Nottinghamshire.