Il Gazzettiere Americano

Bird etchings from the 1763 Italian 

version of 'The American Gazetteer'

Tucano ò sia pica del Brasile

Description & notes: Toucan on the branch of a tree. Text describes a toucan with a red body and white throat. Scientific name: Ramphastos tucanus.

Illustration by Veremondo Rossi

Il re degli zopiloti ò sia degli avoltoi

Description & notes: Vulture or buzzard with skeletons of its prey about its feet. Text describes the vultures of the area around Acapulco; this is perhaps the turkey vulture or Cathartes aura.

Illustration by Veremondo Rossi

Penguino dell' America settentrionale

Description & notes: Penguin with detail of feather and head profile. Perhaps the Humboldt penguin which is native to Peru and Chile. Scientific name: Spheniscus Humboldti.

Illustration by Giuseppe Maria Terreni

Uccello Artico detto Nave da Guerra, che credesi il Maschio

Description & notes: Male Arctic tern. Scientific name: Sterna paradisaea.

Illustration by Antonio Gregori

Il pellicano d'America

Description & notes: Brown pelican stands on coast. Text describes pelican found in Jamaica. Scientific name: Pelecanus occidentalis.

Illustration by Violente Vanni

Gran grue della baia d'Hudson

Description & notes: Heron from Hudson's Bay, probably a great blue heron. The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) range in Canada.

Illustration by Andrea Scacciati

Colibri col petto rosso maschio, e femmina

Description & notes: Hummingbirds. Female sits on a nest with two eggs, while the male bird flies toward her. Also includes a butterfly.

Illustration by Veremondo Rossi

Airone cenerino dell' America settentrionale

Description & notes: Little blue heron standing by the side of a pond. Also includes a fish. Identified as a gray heron (Ardea cinerea); here most likely a little blue heron (Egretta caerulea), a North American bird.

Illustration by Andrea Scacciati

1. Uccello Artico, che credesi la Femmina

2. Uccello chiamato volgarmente il Tropico

Description & notes: Red-billed tropicbird and female Arctic tern. Includes detail of the two birds' heads. Scientific name of the red-billed tropicbird: Phaethon aethereus; scientific name of the Arctic tern: Sterna paradisaea.

Illustration by Ferdinando Gregori

1. Colibri verde colla coda lunga

2. Colibri minimo della sua grandezza naturale

Description & notes: Hummingbirds. Includes branches they are perched on and an egg. Text describes hummingbirds found in Jamaica. Scientific name: Archilochus colubris [?].

Illustration by Veremondo Rossi

1 Fregata

2 Paill'encul

3 Grandgosier

4 Fiammingo

5 piccola Isola d'Aves

Description & notes: Frigate bird, paille-en-queue or tropicbird, pelican, flamingo and Aves or Bird Island. Text describes birds of the Caribbean islands. Frigatebird: (perhaps) Fregata magnificens, paille-en-queue or white-tailed tropicbird: Phaeton lepturrus, pelican: (perhaps) Pelecanus occidentalis, and flamingo: Phoenicopteridae ruber ruber (or the Caribbean flamingo). Image derived from Jean Baptiste Labat, 'Nouveau Voyages', Paris, 1722.

Illustrator not named

1. Aspetto della Montagna dello Zolfo

2 Uccello Diavolo

Description & notes: View of a sulfur mountain or volcano with two black men. Also includes a crow or raven and two dogs. Text discusses the mountain described by Labat and found in Guadeloupe.

Illustrated by Giuseppe Maria Terreni

{All the images above have been lightly spot-cleaned in the background. 

The descriptions/notes below the images are essentially quoted from the source website.
See the first comment below for proposed species identification corrections.}

The full title of the original 3-volume series, published in London in 1762, for J Millar and J&R Tonson, is:

'The American Gazetteer : containing a distinct account of all the parts of the new world, their situation, climate, soil, produce, former and present condition, commodities, manufactures and commerce; together with an accurate account of the cities, towns, ports, bays, rivers, lakes, mountains, passes and fortifications; the whole intended to exhibit the present state of things in that part of the globe, and the views and interests of the several powers who have possessions in America'.

The series is a geographical dictionary or perhaps, more correctly, an encylopaedia of the Americas and I recommend reading some sample paragraphs or pages: the language is wonderful, if dated.

In 1763 the books were translated into Italian and published in Livorno (by Marco Coltellini) as the first complete geographical description of the New World. More than seventy etched engravings of wildlife were added to the few maps that had been published in the first edition. It is the quality of some of the illustrations (the buzzard, pelican and toucan plates above, for instance) that mark this edition as a work of particular distinction.

I noted copies of 'Il Gazzettiere Americano' selling for £2500 this year, but didn't see any sales of the original edition in English in the recent past. I get the feeling that the Italian publication has a better, or more significant, reputation because of the greater range and quality of illustrations.

• The images above from 'Ill Gazzettiere Americano' come from the Archive of Early American History at JCB Library at Brown University, which has about a third of the series' illustration plates available. [click through on the images above to see good-sized versions, but go to the source site to see the birds - and more - in very high resolution zooming frames]
• You can view the whole text easily -- in English, including the long ſ ^ -- via the Internet Archive. to find out that Quito natives' bodies have such good "juices" that they're able to ward off venereal disease; among other things. 
• Vol. 1 of 'Il Gazzettiere Americano' is also available via the Internet Archive.
• Sotheby's | Christie's | Christie's 
• There are various versions of 'The American Gazzetteer' at Amazon.

Kilian Grotesque Ornament

These images are from a 1607 suite of ornamental grotesque prints called 'Newes Gradesca Büchlein' by Lucas Kilian



Grotesque panel with Venus and Cupid; at centre; and two male half-length figures wearing helmets pouring liquid from large pitchers at upper centre from a series of thirteen plates with grotesque panels

A wagon is pulled by a winged satyr

Grotesque panel with a Turk sitting backwards on a donkey chased by wasps; at centre; half-length grotesque figures playing an organ and a harp at lower centre; male figures playing a lute and viola da gamba at centre left and right




Grotesque panel with a Turk seated on a drum holding a banner; at centre; two Turkish horsemen below and two grotesque birds riding sows at lower centre

Sphere under a starry sky

Grotesque panel with a putto seated on a wine barrel at centre; two parrots in profile below; surrounded by festoons




Grotesque panel with a nude female figure (Venus?) standing on a globe; at centre; half-length grotesque figures in various poses throughout




Grotesque panel with a female figure kneeling in front of a classical hunter (Venus and Adonis?) at centre; a hunter shooting a stag at upper centre, another attacking a boar with a spear at lower centre




Grotesque panel with two male figures wrestling at centre; below a lion attacking a bull




Grotesque panel with a half-length grotesque figure sitting on a shell holding two cornucopias at centre; liquid from the cornucopias flowing into bowls held by two seated figures below; with various animals throughout and two male figures at upper left and right roasting birds [Ed. I see kangaroos!]




Grotesque panel with a half-length grotesque figure sitting on a shell holding two sticks from which masks are dangling; below a whole-length figure standing underneath a canopy; grotesque figures reading and farting




Title-page with a strapwork cartouche flanked by female personifications of sculpture and painting; at upper left and right putti holding a burin and a square and pair of dividers



Lucas (Lukas) Kilian (1579-1637) was a painter, draughtsman and engraver and was known to have worked for the publisher, Domenicus Custos [previously]. He spent three years in Italy, mainly in Venice, but lived the majority of his life in his home town of Augsburg in Germany, where he died.

Among the sparse web notes about Kilian is the inference that his independent prints (as opposed to the reproduction work he undertook in Italy to fund his travels) were influential with respect to the graded shade styling of auricular (ear-like) elements and in the novel dissolving grotesque tail appearances. It should be emphasised here that I'm parsing snippets of translated - sometimes garbled - mentions and it's equally possible that Kilian's work may simply be representative of a certain point in the evolution of grotesque embellishment rather than being at the forefront necessarily.

The images above are from an album called 'Newes Gradesca Büchlein' by Lucas Kilian, which he designed and published in Augsburg in 1607 and all but the last image comes from the Rijksmuseum. The British Museum was the source for the title page image and all the commentary below the images in black text (the blue is my rendering of the translation of the Dutch descriptions at the Rijksmuseum). There is, not unexpectedly, some minor contradictions between the commentaries at times.

It might be considered peripheral for the most part here, but one item of interest that surfaced when I was (mostly fruitlessly) searching for background to the Kilian print suite, is an old post from the esteemed misteraitch at Giornale Nuovo called Tales of the Arabesque.

The Time of the Hunt

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio -

15th century Flemish manuscript miniatures

A deer with ten antlers (and Christ on the cross), representing the ten commandments

[The miniatures above have been cropped and the larger images were 

made from spliced screencaps. They are otherwise unaltered.]

Attributed to an anonymous Burgundian illuminator known as the Master of Girart de Roussillon^, 'The Book of King Modus and Queen Ratio' (after 1455) is a treatise on hunting and, in the form held by the Royal Library of Belgium, is bound with a second book, 'The Dream of Pestilence', something of a poetic exposition on contemporary morals.

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus – this is the title of a work conceived in 1370 by Henri de Ferrières^, a knowledgeable expert of the art and practice of hunting. The Norman nobleman, who as an old man exchanged the pen against the sword, wrote the first treatise on hunting in the French language, which has since been copied several times. It is assumed that this manuscript was made for Philip the Good, the third of the great dukes of Burgundy who assembled a kingdom more wealthy and powerful than any other in Europe.

Who was King Modus? - The author wished to underline the authority of his text while also capturing the readers’ attention. He therefore patterned this work after the manner of the Greek philosophers, as a dialogue between a student and his teacher conversing on the hunting profession. The teacher in this case is embodied in the allegorical figure of King Modus.

56 lively miniatures - The miniatures of our manuscript, which was produced in 1455 in Burgundy, deserve special mention. Their rich golden decoration is not only intended to illustrate the instructions of the text but also to glorify the pompous lifestyle of the nobility. They intrigue us with a certain liveliness, the expert representation of animals and the authenticity of the luxurious vestments. The close association with nature was intended by the illuminators who attached great importance to authenticity in their depictions. The book thus displays the pinnacle of Flemish art in a work made for a prince of the high nobility." [Adeva Fine Manuscripts]

• Henri de Ferrières, Les Livres du Roy Modus et de la Royne Ratio is available online in full via the Royal Library of Belgium.
• Book of King Modus and Queen Ratio by Henry of Ferrers at Condé Museum - Domaine de Chantilly.
• Les Livres Du Roy Modus from the Hunting in Europe site.
• Hunt Scenes from Karen Larsdatter's excellent Medieval and Renaissance Works of Art site (worth looking around).
• 'The Book of Archery' 1841 by GH Hansard (see French Archery chapter) from The Archery Library ("an online library containing digital versions of old archery books, prints and articles from times past.")
• Le Livre de Chasse de Gaston Phebus : (fabulous) site at BNF. -> this is the most famous hunting manuscript in French.
• Previously: Falconry.

China Birds

A suite of engraved bird prints from 

the 1730s by Gabriel Huquier

(all the images above were cropped around the plate margin 

and the backgrounds have been extensively cleaned of stains)

'Livre des Différentes Espèces d'Oiseaux de la Chine' (Book of different species of Chinese birds) from the 1730s, engraved by Gabriel Huquier, was posted to the Biodiversity Heritage Library by the Smithsonian Institution. The book has no text, save for the title page illustration up top. (also: Internet Archive) [a bibliographic note at the Smithsonian implies that the book seen above may derive from an earlier one by Huquier: link]

The original (uncropped/uncleaned) pages were also uploaded by BHL to a Flickr set (also see all BHL Flickr sets).

A larger book ('Oiseaux de la Chine', also from the 1730s) by Jean-Baptiste Oudry features 60 plates, reproducing individual (and pairs and triplet) bird images originally engraved by Huquier. Bibliothèque de l'Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art hosts a hand-coloured edition of this book (click on the image and then note the thumbnail icon bottom left)

"The entrepreneurial printseller Gabriel Huquier (1695–1772), established in rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, was a prominent engraver and designer of ornament in an advanced Rococo taste, a pivotal figure in the production of French 18th-century ornamental etchings and engravings who was himself a collector of works of art." [W]

Also see Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum at the Smithsonian - they feature a wide array of Huquier's works, particularly his early Rococo style ornament engravings.

• Previously: China.
• Elsewhere: Twitter, Delicious, Pinboard.