Noble Country Living

From beer barrels to blood-letting to breeding, this 3-volume proto-encylopaedia of agriculture and homestead management had the landed gentry in Austria/Germany in the late Baroque period well-covered for farming information. 'Georgica Curiosa' by Wolf Helmhardt von Hohberg was first published in 1682. Editions were released in the following decade of both two and three volumes in length and they all included copious numbers of engravings to illustrate the extensive text.

The full title of the work (probably just one of the volumes) approximates as follows:

" Georgica Curiosa -- that is, a complete and clear education report about living a noble, country life.
Covering the german countryside and home economics /
Here and there mixed with rare inventions and experiments /
All embellished with a large number of beautiful copperplates /
In two marvellous Parts - each divided into six books /
Presented in such a way that in the
FIRST PART:
The workings and holdings of country estates /
How christian house-fathers and house-mothers act during their work-life inside and outside of the house /
In every situation and during seasonal changes, throughout the whole year /
In each chore and situation in the house and on the field /
In their behaviour towards others /
And how to best arrange wine and fruit for the kitchen, and the use of medicinal and flower gardens /
How to keep them viable and how to profit from them is also included
IN THE OTHER PART
How to organize all of farming in the easiest, lightest and most useful way /
Be it in the breeding and training of horses, or how to care or breed and enjoy cattle /
How to obtain bees' wax, the silk of worms - from which to make a profit /
How to create all kinds of fountains, cisterns, canals, ponds, pools, dams, brooks, fish nurseries, and other waterworks /
How to plant, maintain and improve the manure and any kind of farm field with different types of game and fowl: all this is explained.
Brought to light by a member of the honourable fruitbearing society "

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Wolf Helmhardt von Hohberg (1612-1688) was a soldier in his early adult life, attaining the rank of Captain by the time he was 30. He left the army soon after and took up residence at his family's land holdings in Thaya, ~Czech/Austria. He became something of an informal scholar (supposedly to while away the winters), educating himself in ancient and modern languages, poetry, literature, history and agriculture.

He fled his farm for Regensburg (SE Germany) in ~1660 due to the persecution of Protestants and he remained there until his death. He was a well respected citizen and a highly decorated member of the exiled Austrian nobility. Though his main love was agriculture, von Hohberg published a number of epic poems, inspired by figures such as Virgil and Aristotle. One of these works apparently told the story of a Byzantine superhero percursor to the Hapsburg dynasty(!?)

Von Hohberg is best remembered for his contributions to agricultural and rural studies. The images above come from an exhaustive and pioneering review of both farming practises and wholistic rural living.

"A rare three-volume edition of Hohberg's major work on agriculture, considered a forerunner of the specialized agricultural encyclopedias of the eighteenth century, and which also covers fruit-growing, gardening, viticulture, manufacture of glass and soap, mining, food, spices, cattle breeding, horses, forestry, human and veterinary medicine, hunting, fishing and beekeeping. The particularly rare third volume ends with a cookery section titled 'Bewahrtes Wohleingerichtetes Koch-Buch'." [Source]

That basic description leaves out an important dimension of von Hohberg's publication (which itself began life as an extended poem!). Beyond the practical and academic concerns, von Hohberg was trying to teach the farming community how to lead a dignified life. His volumes lay out the importance of the patriarchal system and appropriate subordination to the paterfamilias*; how people might best control their inner 'passions'; the varied economies of a household and holdings; the nature of just and unjust earnings; as well as the rightful place of religion and prayer in a good person's life.

I noted in passing that 'Georgica Curiosa' supposedly took von Hohberg more than 20 years to write, which gave him time to do both a comprehensive review of all the agricultural literature available, plus survey a wide section of the Regensburg rural community and surrounds to document the range of farming activities and best practices used by families, workers and the like. It also appears that his early epic poetry was received with less enthusiasm by his contemporaries than von Hohberg would have liked. It was apparently dismissed by the 'serious' folk as some sort of fanboy ravings by a Virgil-wannabe, who only ended up as a member of a fruit-bearing society for his 'epic' troubles. Or so the story goes..

• 'Georgica Curiosa' (1682) by Wolf Helmhardt von Hohberg is available online from Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf (click 'Overview' for thumbs) - to be honest, I'm not totally certain how much of the series is on the website [eg.] but it's probably only the first volume [contents]. It was a 3-volume publication but was released at least once in only two volumes. In any event, it's a very large work whose ample number of (what might individually and charitably be called serviceable) engravings, together form a great visual farming record of the period. I like being surprised in this way. You see one engraving and shrug, but after 30, 50, 100+ illustrations of this type .. they can become fairly hypnotic, and much more informative, even beautiful in their own way, en masse.
• A couple of resource links (in German): Wolf Helmhardt von Hohberg - Wikipedia :: Deutsches Museum = best link overall.
• Worldcat entries for Wolf Helmhardt von Hohberg.
• Amazon search mentions of Wolfgang Helmhard Hohberg.
• ADDIT: ULB Sachsen-Anhalt features digitised copies of von Hohberg's works and appears to have all three volumes from the 'Georgica Curiosa' series available online.
• Thanks very much Jeanne!
• This post first appeared on the BibliOdyssey website.

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The Foreword to 'Georgica Curiosa' goes something like this:

"I never thought of writing about economics, but after the original 'Georgica..', many of my reader friends told me that such an instructional work would be better as prose than as poetic verses. I didn't do that until I came to Regensburg, where I finally found the free writing time.

Everybody knows some parts of what I write about, so I will try to do it wisely, like Plutarch in his Feast for the Seven Wise (Greek) Men, where Periander asks which domestic economy is the best, and Solon answers, one where no stolen goods or land is to be seen, that you can keep without mistrust and give without regret. Then come the opinion of the other six greeks... where there is more love than fear, where you have all you need and don't desire the unnecessary, where you only do sufficient as is necessary, etc.

Many writers have tried this. It is a long list: first, the Greeks and Romans and Phoenicians. Then Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards (one of them is better at prayers then at economy). Then the Africans, translated from latin to arabic by the Granadian scholar Mansor. Then a Jesuit from Poland, some Flemish. And quite a few good works from England.

The first german work is from Kaiser Konstantin IV and then, the best known is the 'Calendarium Perpetuum' by Johannis Coleri, in 20 volumes. A few more and I almost forgot, Georg Andres Böckler, who in 1678 edited a useful House and Field School, and more followed. But some of them have stole their writing word for word from others, and are not worth being remembered (and, in fact, should be punished). Others manuscripts have helped me too. [..]

About no part of the book have I found works written in so many languages then Gardening. (Then [von Hohberg] thanks the people who made the etchings, his friends, particularly some doctor in Regenburg who lent him a lot of books. *But since Economy is one of the most all-encompassing sciences, one can't hope to have made a perfect work... Economy is like an ocean, with so many rivers coming into it.*

The order of the work is in two books, each divided into six, which makes 12 books altogether. Everything is included in named chapters, which makes perusing easy. The people who don't like the poetry should skip it and go to the more explicit parts. But I left some poetry in it, so as not to divide the sweet/aesthetic from the practical. If some wish to argue that I only speak about the climate in Austria, that the book can't be used for the whole of the Roman Kingdom, I'll say that, at least most chapters are universal, and in one chapter you'll find some charts that can help to calculate the differences between places.

Here's hoping for moderation in my readers.. "

Chromatic Wood Type

"Chromatic type is printed from multiple pieces of type, each in a different ink color. The following samples are all from the William H. Page company's 1874 book, 'Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, Etc.' [.]. The specimen book was used to sell the wooden pieces of type to printers. The types cost around 25 cents per letter, per ink color. 

[In some images you can see] white lines between the [different colors or as part of the letter borders]. That's the paper showing through, and it's an intentional part of the design meant to add another color. Remember, each color is the result of the sheet of paper making a separate pass through the press. 

Getting each piece of type to hit the sheet of paper in exactly the right spot relative to the other colored parts of the same letter required amazing craftsmanship. The system of controlling positioning is called registration. These chromatic types were designed to register as much as possible (they were cut from a single multi-level pattern), but given the inherent inexactness of the presses, it's still quite a feat." [source]

Rob Roy Kelly wrote that Wm. H. Page’s 'Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, Etc.', 1874 “has been rightfully acclaimed as containing the most superb wood type specimens ever printed.” This tome of 100 plates featured Page’s fantastic character designs, intricate borders and tint blocks, precisely printed in up to 7 colors each — sometimes with metallic inks, and always with interesting overprinted hues. [source]

The images below from 'Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type..',

were sourced from Columbia University Libraries website.

Belgian ornamented No.2 type

Doric, Florentine, Clarendon & Aldine Ornamented, Etruscan type

Gothic paneled No.2 type

"To Color Printers
We have the pleasure of laying before you a Specimen Book of Chromatic Wood Type, and would say it is now eighteen years since we began Type making. Progress in the Art can be seen by comparing the present volume, with Specimens of that date. There were at that time five or six other manufacturers in the country. Now we manufacture seven-eights of all the Wood Type made, and are now able to show by itself a Book of Chromatic Type and Borders that is not excelled in the world. It has taken years of time to prepare and perfect it. The designs with two or three exceptions are entirely original with us. The demand for Chromatic Type is quite limited, therefore we cannot apply this book free, only to our Agents Most Respectfully Yours, Wm. H. Page & Co." 

[Introduction to 'Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type' 1874]

Corinthian type

Ornate type

Streamer Gothic Paneled type

Renaissance type

Etruscan type

Clarendon ornamented type

French Clarendon ornamented type

"Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, Etc., Manufactured by Wm. H. Page & Co. Greeneville, Ct.: The Co., 1874. 

William H. Page (1829–1906), worked while young as a wood type finisher at manufacturer John Cooley’s shop. He later bought out another firm’s machinery and expanded by the 1860s to be the country’s chief producer of wood type. Intense competition through the mid-1880s with J. E. Hamilton’s cheaper veneered types sent Page’s market share into decline. He sold his business to the Hamilton Company in 1891.

Page’s firm had a great catalog of original character designs, intricate borders, and tint blocks cut with exacting precision. The company can be credited with printing possibly the most beautiful color wood type specimen ever, a page of which is on view here. Each plate in this book is letterpress printed with several colors, showing the versatility of color blends imaginable with Page products. The specimen of some 100 pages was produced in a small edition since the market for chromatic wood type was very limited." [source]

Old English ornamented type

Arcadian type

Gothic ornamented type

Streamer Arcadian & Arabian type

Stars, cut any size desired

Aetna ornamented type

"Chromatic types were made to print in two or more colors. These types, produced in register as corresponding pairs, were designed so that one color would overlap another in certain places to create a third color. Chromatic types were shown regularly in foundry type specimen books of the 1840s and 1850s. 

Chromatic types were first produced as wood type by Edwin Allen, and shown by George Nesbitt in his 1841 Fourth Specimen of Machinery Cut Wood Type. Both William H. Page in 1859, and J.G. Cooley in c.1859, showed several pages of Chromatic type in each of their wood type specimen books. Page showed these types in most of his specimen books in the 1870s. The high point of Chromatic wood type production came in 1874 when the William H. Page Wood Type Co. issued their 100-page Specimens of Chromatic Type & Borders. Though Hamilton, Morgans & Wilcox, and Heber Wells all showed samples of Chromatic types through the rest of the century, none of these ever reached the level of intricate precision attained in Page’s 1874 masterpiece." [source]

• The complete 'Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders etc Manufactured by Wm H Page & Co' 1874 is available online from Columbia University Libraries. That same copy is available in various formats through the Internet Archive.
• Wood type books at Amazon.
• Woodtyper - 'notes on large & ornamented type & related matters' - very much worth perusing despite being on apparent hiatus since 2010.
• The Hamilton Wood Type Museum "is the only museum dedicated to the preservation, study, production and printing of wood type. With 1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns, Hamilton's collection is one of the premier wood type collections in the world." (@hamiltonwoodtyp) {Two Rivers, Wisconsin}.
• *Chromatic Wood Type Goes Colorimetric at RIT* Oct 2013 by Amelia Hugill-Fontanel of RIT Cary Graphic Arts. [nb. printinghistory will soon have a .org suffix]
• The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection at the University of Austin, Texas.
• The Collected Writings of Rob Roy Kelly at the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York.
• From the Exhibitions site at RIT's Cary Graphic Arts Collection, the Wood Type Exhibition - a good intro/overview of the craft.
• Wood type category entries from Typography.com.
• 'Chromatic Type' blog post from 2010.
• 'Intercut wood typeface project' by Nick Sherman [@NickSherman]
• ADDIT: Nick recently gave a talk on the 'Specimens of Wood Type..' book at an American Printing History Association conference - it looks to have been a fabulous line up, ostensibly covering colour in illustrated prints, books, comics and letterpress to digital printing & more, through  500+ years of human printing history.
• 'Polychromatic Digital Type - Over the Rainbow' by GF Aug 2013 advises [for good or ill] that a budding new standard, supported by Microsoft, "will allow true, infinitely resizeable multicoloured type on the internet, in apps and even for home colour printers".
• Thanks very much to Nina & Jesse.
• I purposefully arranged for SIN to be at the beginning and end of the visuals, not just because it's an arresting word, but because I associate a lot of this lettering with 19th century American saloon signage: I must have seen too many westerns as a kid.
• This post first appeared on the BibliOdyssey website.

The Turner's Manual

Engraved plates of materials, techniques and machines

used to craft turned ornamental products in the 1790s

Ornamental (wood & metal) turning in late 18th century France was an art form most associated with the upper ranks of society and particularly the royal court. Publishing a how-to manual on turning under your own name in the 1790s against the backdrop of the French Revolution wouldn't have been the most sensible of life choices because the author's association with the hated aristocracy would be printed in black and white for all to see.

So the true author of The Turner's Manual - 'Manuel du Tourneur' - (the eminent lawyer, Louis Georges Isaac Salivet) decided against using his own name on the title pages of the first two volumes when they were released in 1792 and 1796, respectively (together making up the 1st edition).

Instead, Salivet employed two allonyms (like pseudonyms, but real people), Louis-Eloy Bergeron and his son-in-law, Pierre Hamelin-Bergeron, with whom Salivet was said to be at least acquainted, if not actual friends. There is no record as to whether or not the substitutes agreed to their names being used in this way. Citations online are divided between authors Salivet and Bergeron, but the latter probably dominates.

Salivet (or perhaps one of the Bergerons) was said to have owned a Paris firm "that sold rose engines, tools, lathes and materials for turning. This seminal work contains numerous engravings of various objects and patterns from which to model both turning equipment and turned objects." [source]

There appears to be only occasional commentary available online with respect to the technical qualities of the volumes. There are sparse references to its having merit in the first half of the 19th century both because it was an assiduous chronicle of continental development in the field of lathe-work and turning, and because there was no comparable literature available at the time in England (in fact, I don't think Salivet's Manual was fully translated** until just a few years ago). The 'Manuel du Tourneur' was specifically aimed at the amateur craftsman with the machines, models and techniques outlined relating to woodworking (most) and metalwork, with modest primers on glass engraving and ivory work.

A musical instrument journal article - predominantly a translation of text - about the flute and related instrument machining (illustration plate seen above) found inconsistencies in some of Salivet's descriptions and measurements. They conclude he wasn't a flautist himself, but very probably had obtained descriptions from (a) Parisian flute-maker(s), and he didn't have the background to adjust the information for context.

The revised 2nd edition of 'Manuel du Tourneur' (1816) was enlarged to include an atlas volume containing engravings by Nicolas Louis Rousseau from drawings by Gallet. The earlier edition had a smaller series of illustrations after designs by Louis-Jacques Goussier (known for his technical drawing contributions to Diderot's 'L'Encyclopédie' and illustration redesigns for 'Les Anatomies' by Vesalius). The atlas contains more than seventy regular and hand-coloured engravings in total.

**Just prior to posting this entry I found details about the 2010 translation of the Bergeron/Salivet 'Manuel du Tourneur' into English, and the following quote is found here (it's only mentioned at a couple of sites, both listed among the bullet points down below):

"The Society of Ornamental Turners has released in hardback a translation of Bergeron's 'Manual du Tourneur'. Volumes I and II are text only and contain no plates; the third volume often (called the 'Atlas') contains all the Plates referred to in Volumes I and II. Editor Jeremy Soulsby has translated the previously un-translated 239 pages as well as extensively revising the style and content of the earlier works so as to clarify obscure terminology and techniques. He has fully indexed the volume and provided a glossary and extended notes.

As described from the SOT website: 'First published during the turbulent times of the French Revolution, Bergeron's Manuel du Tourneur or The Turner's Manual has been admired for over two hundred years as a comprehensive record of all the tools, machinery and techniques required by an eighteenth century amateur wishing to establish a fully equipped workshop for the hobby of turning. This, the second volume of text which uses the 1816 revised and expanded second edition by P. Hamelin-Bergeron, is available for the first time in an English translation. It deals with the more elaborate elements of the subject and gives instruction in the use of the complex lathes of the period which were used to make many of the artefacts now to be seen in museums'."

• 'Manuel du Tourneur' is available online in full through the Swiss National Collaborative Libraries host portal, e-rara. [note the links lower left to each of the three volumes; thumbnail page views are available]
• Woodworker's Manuals 1900 and Before.
• Books on Ornamental Turning from *Ornamental Turning - The online resource for "OT" enthusiasts*.
• Bergeron at Circuitousroot (commentary on the article below & web edition listings).
• Bergeron book translation listing at The Society of Ornamental Turners - contains more information and sample pages {SOT homepage}.
• 'Bergeron on Flute-Making' by Michael Wright IN: The Galpin Society Journal (Vol 29. May 1976. pp. 26-34).
• Amazon listings for Salivet publications.
• Previously: The Wood Book and, more generally: Machines.
• Thanks John!
• This post first appeared on the BibliOdyssey website.