Distillerbuch

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Hieronymous Braunschweig (~1450-1512) was from Strasbourg and was probably a surgeon. Beyond these 'facts' things are a bit vague.

Braunschweig produced a number of books on distillation and the above Distillerbuch from 1551 was an amalgamation of his earlier writings from ~1500. It is an interesting and important body of work. Distillerbuch belongs to a number of subject areas: alchemy, chemistry, botany and pharmacology; and tangentially, medicine. It is another of those pivotal works that marks the transition from the middle ages to modern science.

Braunschweig compiled all the known information about the processes of distillation from his age - the methods for plant extraction and purification, distilling by filtration, sunlight, in sand and water baths, at varying temperatures and even using ants (a bottle of good wine matured in an anthill for a year would provide a pleasant treatment for rheumatism: I believe there are many 'remedies' throughout the book). A figure of an ant can be seen above; more perplexing or worrying perhaps are the presence of goats, frogs and other critters. My german is non-existent, my middle or high german is even worse. That may be a good thing.

Beyond the fanciful madrigore image at the top, the other illustrations in this 433 page manuscript are relatively true to life. If there are 250 pictures in the book then more than 200 of them are of plants - including the flowering marijuana species (I think) above. Distillerbuch was apparently the leading recipe book for pharmaceutical and home distillation setups for a century or more.

• Braunschweig's Distillerbuch is online in its entirety at Polska Biblioteka Internetowa (click 'Miniaturki' for thumbnail images). There is some sort of session timer in play so occasional error messages came up in separate frames, but it isn't a great annoyance.
• This site gives some overview of distillation as it pertains to Braunschweig (translation - about 6 pages) [original]
• Antiquarian book site summary of Grosses Distillierbuch.
• Summary (and a few images) of Liber de arte Distillandi from the University of Illinois.

There are other 'bits and pieces' of information on the web but nothing remarkable or with much air of authority. Play around with the surname spelling to search for more background - you may recall I mentioned 'Brunschwig' last week in relation to infectious diseases.

British Geographical and Trignometrical Surveying History

"In this page from his 'Book of Practical Geometry', Henry Fombelle sets out some of the "Different details necessary for drawing Topography". These military conventions for representing features of the landscape, originally derived from French models, were those adopted by the draughtsmen of the Ordnance Survey." [This is a surviving notebook from the Royal Military Academy ~1765]


"This view of Annan comes from a "topographical and military account of the state of the Marches", written around 1569. The town commanded an important defensive position on the estuary of the River Annan, overlooking the English territories across the shallow waters of the Solway Firth." [Robert the Bruce was an Earl of Annandale - this place was a traditional thorn in the side of England]


"A book of plans of fortifications gives a detailed picture of England's defences around the middle of the 18th century. This plan of Dover Castle was drawn in 1752.

The positions of the batteries of cannon on the castle ramparts and the cliff top are shown precisely. The canon labelled "long gun" in the middle of the cliff top was the castle's most impressive weapon: a brass culverin, 24 feet 2 inches long and capable of firing a shot weighing 12 pounds. Remaining artillery consisted of 21 cast-iron 6-pounders. There were 150 muskets with bayonets, 40 pistols and storage room for 330 barrels of gunpowder."

"The high standards achieved in drawing and cartography by the best of the gentlemen cadets can be illustrated by the work of one of the Royal Military Academy's most illustrious graduates: Lieutenant Archibald Campbell.

Campbell drew this east view of Fort Royal on Guadeloupe in the West Indies towards the end of the island's brief occupation by the British between 1759 and 1763. He was sent there as part of the invasion force during the course of the Seven Years' War against France. Several of Campbell's Guadeloupe views were engraved by Peter Mazell and published in London."

"Precision measurement of a baseline would be of little use in a trigonmetrical survey without an instrument capable of measuring the angles between it and distant points with comparable accuracy. The instrument designed to do this, a theodolite, is essentially a rotating telescope mounted on a circular scale.

The 'Great Theoldite' was eventually delivered to the Board of Ordnance in July of 1787. Three feet in diameter, it weighed 200 pounds and was transported in its own four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage. The magnificent brass and wood instrument is seen here in an illustration drawn by Lieutenant Thomas Vincent Reynolds for a presentation to the Royal Society by William Roy in 1790."

"These three views of the Royal Observatory in Paris were engraved in 1705 by Antoine Coquart. The lower night-time picture shows astronomers making observations of the moon and stars.

King Louis XIV established the observatory in 1667 with the express intention of making France as powerful in the world of science as she was in the theatre of war. The building was designed by Claude Perrault, who was also architect of the east wing of the Louvre Palace."

"Britain looked anxiously across the Channel, not for the first or the last time. By 1801, when James Gilray drew this political cartoon, Napoleon had taken command of the French army and begun the military campaigns he hoped would make him master of Europe. The cartoon shows the Secretary of War, William Windham, haunted by the nightmare of a French invasion with Napoleon leading a broken Britannia to the guillotine.

The threat was real: by 1804, Napoleon would have an army of 90,000 poised to cross the Channel. But England was prepared. Underpinning its defence strategy was the decision, finally taken in 1791, to map the whole of the country, beginning with the vulnerable south coast."


"Ordnance Survey maps were produced in four main stages. From their field notebooks, surveyors made a rough or 'foul' plan. This first draft was followed by an intermediate or 'proof' plan, which was carefully checked for accuracy.

A 'fair plan was then made at the reduced scale of one inch to the mile, sometimes with colouring. From this fair plan, a copper plate was engraved printing the finished map." [I pasted these images together of the four stages of map production for Wye, Kent]


"Gentlemen cadets were the sons of the well-to-do and serving military officers. Most were aged between 14 and 19. Candidates for admission were required to pass a written examination covering a range of academic subjects.

Cadets faced an intensive six-days-a-week regime, centred on theoretical and practical military studies. This watercolour by George Scharf shows gentleman cadets at sword practice in the 1820s. Their training also included cultural and social skills. A French Master and a Drawing Master were appointed on the foundation of the academy...In these lessons, the drawing master was required to "teach the method of Sketching Ground, the taking of views, the Drawing of Civil Architecture, and the Practice of Perspective." "

[All the images {sans watermarks} were uploaded at full size - click for larger versions]

On the Trig is an extensive themed tour from the 'Collect Britain' section of the British Library.

With a large number of rare and eclectic book images, notebooks, prints and charts &c it presents 'the origin and early years of the Trigonometrical Survey of England and Wales'. This is a formidable and excellent site with copious explanatory notes and occasional flash tutorials on instruments and mapmaking. I went back through about 3 times to see everything. A+

Moleskine Alchemy

Alchemy Notebook: liquid acrylic inks, Prismacolor watercolor pencils, and metallic acrylic paint in a Moleskine pocket sketchbook.
Images © www.ninthwavedesigns.com [via Monkeyfilter]

Leonard Baskin and the Gehenna Press

“People like me, who care about printing,
constitute the tiniest lunatic fringe in the nation.”

Published title page and letterpress.
Ted Hughes. Capriccio.
The Gehenna Press, 1990.

Leonard Baskin. Color etchings of Moise Brisquette.
from Jewish Artists of the Early and Late Renaissance
A Book of Etchings and Words. Gehenna Press, 1993.

'The enigmatic, humorous Jewish Artists of the Early & Late Renaissance, is written from the point of view of an imagined art historian, who acts as our guide through esoteric biographical details. This humorous work is in fact a fanciful pantheon of Jewish artists who might have flourished during the Renaissance, but didn’t.'

"Being Jewish confounds things. The people of the book are
intelligently defined as a religion. I, a believing atheist, proudly
declare my jewishness. It is to Yiddish that my spirit warms;
to that heritage of persecution and sensual denial, that Yiddish
so richly expresses. Not religion, but religious texts: not beliefs
or superstition, fear or malignant custom, but the literacy, artistic,
cultural and human relics of that religion."

Of the making of books there is no end.
Watercolor on heavy wove paper.
Illustration of Ecclesiastes 12:12.
[slightly cropped - screencap.]

Richard Michelson. Masks: Poems.
Color etching by Leonard Baskin. The Gehenna Press, 1999.

Leonard Baskin. Etching proof and touched etching proof from:
Diptera: a Book of Flies & Other Insects. The Gehenna Press, 1983.
[I pasted these 2 together]

Leonard Baskin. Bee Fly. Etching from:
Diptera: A Book of Flies & Other Insects. The Gehenna Press, 1983.

Leonard Baskin. Etching proof on vellum of grasshoppers mating from:
Diptera: A Book of Flies & Other Insects. The Gehenna Press, 1983.

Leonard Baskin. Artist’s proof.
Color etching for A Book of Demons.
[published 2001]

Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) was a graphic artist, sculptor, master printer, publisher and teacher and established the private printing house, Gehenna Press sometime between 1942 and 1953 (there are conflicting histories online). 'Gehenna' derives from a pun on Milton's Paradise Lost: "And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell." (Gehenna is 'hell' in hebrew).

Baskin produced many of the prints for the more than 100 books that have been published in limited edition runs by Gehenna since it began. The above sampling seems a fair representation of the themes that run through Baskin's work: dark/nightmare images; natural history, people and more people and with a background and sometimes foreground vein from his Jewish heritage.

All the major art institutions and libraries of the world have works by Baskin who received countless awards for his books, prints and sculptures - which includes a bas relief (detail) for the FD Roosevelt Memorial and a bronze statue for the Michigan Holocaust Memorial. My understanding is that Gehenna Press is still operating in Massachusetts but they don't appear to have a devoted website.

• The images here come from Artifex: Leonard Baskin and the Gehenna Press, a great exhibition from a few years ago at Cornell University.
• R Michelson Galleries: Leonard Baskin - Sculpture, Watercolors and Fine Art Prints.
• Davidson Gallery selection of artworks - horizontal scroll.
• Leonard Baskin in memoriam by Michael Kuch.
• Biography and selection of graphics at Wolman Prints.

[All images remain © the Estate of Leonard Baskin]

Squid and Jellyfish

'Medusae from the Maldive Islands' by Henry B Bigelow in: Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 1904 at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

'The Development of the Squid. Loligo pealii (Lesueur)' by KW Brooks: Anniversary of the Boston Society of Natural History 1880 at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

Imagining Classical Piranesi Architecture

"I need to produce great ideas, and I believe that if I were commissioned
to design a new universe, I would be mad enough to undertake it."

[click the images for much larger versions]

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) had a Venetian family background in stonemasonry and engineering but apprenticed as an engraver/etcher in Rome from about the age of 19. He would no doubt assert that he was primarily an architect but only a single unremarkable church was ever built from his plans.

Encouraged by his brother to study the antiquities and tutored in Rome by Giuseppe Vasi who produced scenic Roman prints, Piranesi developed a fascination for ancient architecture. He would continue all his life producing plates for a series documenting Roman buildings, among a legacy of some 2000 etchings and engravings.

Piranesi was remarkable in the way he infused his work with dramatic design elements and a healthy and sometimes dark imagination. His famous Carceri d'Invenzione ('Imaginary Prisons') series of illusory gothic dungeons calls to mind Kafka and Escher and Victorian horror scenes. He was 22 when the set of 16 prints was made.

Although he was familiar with (and indeed illustrated) ancient Greek and Egyptian architecture, Piranesi was a champion for the Roman style and where time had erased detail he substituted elaborate ornamentation from his own imagination. His highly original work would influence neoclassical designers, romantic writers and surrealists alike.
Francesco Piranesi (son) 1831:

"In an age of frivolities, he boldly and singlehandedly dared to strike out for himself on a new road to fame: and in dedicating his talent to the recording and illustrating from ancient writers the records of former times, he met with a success as great as it deserved, combining, as he did, all that was beautiful in art with all that was interesting in the remains of antiquity."

All of the images above are details taken from Della Magnificenza Ed Architettura De'Romani / De Romanorvm Magnificentia Et Architectura 1761 (38 plates) and Osservazioni Di Gio. Battista Piranesi sopra la Lettre de M. Mariette aux auteurs de la Gazette Littéraire de l'Europe 1765 (3 plates) from the University of Heidelburg (click 'Tafeln' for the illustrations). Be aware: if you click '+' at bottom of any page, the zoom loads as a pdf file - these are enormous when saved as jpeg images.

I am greatly indebted (again) to misteraitch for having stoked my interest with some background links.

• Some images and a review of Piranesi's work at the Metropolitan Museum.
• Illustrations de Antichita Romanae 1748-1791 at Gallica-BNF (914 pages)
• The Engravings of GB Piranesi, and other Plans of Rome - a large selection of images.
• Some short biographies of Piranesi.
• 'Engravings by Piranesi' (137 images)
• UPDATE: NYT article October 2010 - Piranesi's Elevated Etchings.
  

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As is the custom here at a centenary post (500) I reiterate the invitation to anyone who knows of suitable BibliOdysseyesque material online to contact via email or as a comment. By preference I most desire works relating to the less well represented areas of the world (you know, the not-Western Europe/not-USA sections) but I'm still happy to hear about any and all books/prints/repositories and the somesuch. I have an enormous number of links saved so this encouragement is not a signal that the well is dry or that my brain has yet seized. Cheers.