Sunday, October 28, 2007

Academy of the Sword

Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death!
a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!
[Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet - III, i]


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628


girard thibault academie de l'espee 1628 circulus detail


girard thibault  academie de l'espee 1628 detail


girard thibault  academie de l'espee 1628 detail


girard thibault  academie de l'espee 1628 detail


girard thibault  academie de l'espee 1628 detail


girard thibault  academie de l'espee 1628 detail

Between the 16th and 18th centuries swordplay experienced an evolution in technology and technique. The heavier broadswords which were often just used as bludgeoning weapons began to give way to lighter and narrower breeds, particularly the rapier, whose sharp point was better able to pierce a combatant and whose extra length allowed for both a greater reach and better defensive positioning.

These new weapons also became fashionable sidearms for use in civilian combat, duels and for purely sporting purposes. The cumbersome tactics employed with the older weapons, which relied on brute strength brought to bear on the cutting edge of the blades, were superseded by more dexterous skills and speed, where the tip of the sword and the lunge were emphasised. Fencing techniques came to be regarded as more of a science during the 16th century and were naturally influenced by the advancements that occurred during the Renaissance.

The Spanish school of swordsmanship - 'La Destreza' ('high level skill') - emerged as the leading theoretical system in Europe in the 1550s with a book published by Geronimo Carranza in which geometry became a primary source for insight into combat techniques. His pupil, Luis Pacheco de Navarez, expanded the theory in his own work published at the end of the century.

Navarez was to train a Flemish swordsman (and doctor, poet, artist, architect and occultist), Girard Thibault (Thibault d'Anvers), who became a Master in the Spanish fencing methods in the first decade of the 17th century. His accumulated knowledge, together with the advancements to the mathematical theories he made himself, were collected and published in 1630 (although the book bears a 1628 date) in the most elaborate and lavishly illustrated fencing treatise ever produced. Thibault first acquired royal patents for his work in about 1620 so it essentially took him ten years to finally get his volume released, and it included more than forty sumptuous double-page folio engravings by some sixteen of the best artists of the day (eg. Crispin de Passe, Pieter Serwouters, Schelte and Boetius Bolswert, Saloman Savery, Jakob Goltzius, Peter Isselburg, Pieter de Jode &c).

A central tenet of the Thibault thesis on Spanish swordsmanship is the idea of a magic or mysterious (as it was to contemporary observers) or Thibault circle - essentially the diameter of an imaginary ring on the ground in which the stance, attack and defensive positioning all take place. The size of this circle corresponds to the height of the swordsman to the tip of his outstrectched finger (seen in a couple of the above images). All of the tactical movements are described by circular and linear concepts and a knowledge of geometry is fundamental to exploiting the strongest positions.
"The dogmatic Thibault d’Anvers, who only admits perfectly defined calculations in his theories, speaks, however, of the feeling of the sword, the feeling of iron, referring to the very current proprioceptive and kinaesthetic qualities, rather than to improvisation and adaptability. His theories are based on mechanical reflexes and stereotypes with a strictness, completely geometric, inscribed in a mysterious circle which, according to him, is the basis of the science of fencing."
Thibault's text was "founded squarely on the on traditions of spiritual philosophy and practice and formed one of several practical expressions of Renaissance Hermetic occultism". Mystical pythagorean geometry is said to have found its place during the Renaissance in the esoteric arts of occultism. In that light, it's perhaps unsurprising that Thibault quotes at length from 'De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres' by German magician HC Agrippa. All this is just to say that, rather than being a secret discipline based on the wearing of puffy trousers, Destreza may well be the only esoteric western martial art.

The full title in english of 'Academie de l'Espee' is:
'Academy of the Sword. Wherein is demonstrated by mathematical rules on the foundation of a mysterious circle, the theory and practice of the true and heretofore unknown secrets of handling arms on foot and horseback'. But the horseback section was never completed - Thibault died prior to release of the book.

Friday, October 26, 2007

The Bishops

Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript

Polish illuminated manuscript detail


Polish illuminated manuscript detail


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript


Polish illuminated manuscript detail


'Catalogus Archiepiscoporum Gnesnensium Vitae Episcoporum Cracoviensium' (Catalogue of the Archbishops of Gniezno and Lives of the Bishops of Cracow) is available at the National Digital Library of Poland (note the six-dotted thumbnail icon top left of the frame). The images above were posted to wikimedia.

It was written by the Polish historian, Jan Długosz (who also produced the 'Banderia Prutenorum' flag book), in the 15th century. The exquisite illuminations for this version (1531-1535) were painted by Stanislaw Samostrzelnik. Not even such magnificent embellishment using medieval photoshoppery could endow this parade of Bishops with anything approaching a happy or friendly disposition however. Almost all of them appear to be sour old men, utterly without charm.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Toying With Japan

japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


japanese toy designs


Akita Prefectural Library in Japan have a series of six toy design illustration books produced between 1891 and 1913 by (I think) Yamada from Kyoto.

All the images above have been cleaned up to one extent or another. There is a further set of eight images which I cleaned but didn't post in this webshots album.

Are we seeing any European influence here at all do you think?

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The BibliOdyssey Book

It is my privilege and pleasure to announce that a book based on the this humble website is now in release and available for purchase by the general public. Interested persons should head to the publisher's site if they are in Europe/UK and to Amazon if they are not.

For those without credit cards or who are allergic to online financial transactions, the latest advice has discerning bookshops in both USA and UK receiving their stock by the second week of November, with the rest of the world to follow shortly thereafter. You may otherwise encourage your favourite bookshop to seek supply (and a measurable improvement in taste and status) direct from the publisher.


BibliOdyssey - the book cover


As you might expect, the book features eclectic and rare book illustrations derived from many digital repositories, accompanied by some background commentary. It is not simply a regurgitation of what is here in the archives, although about two thirds of the images have appeared on the site previously.

With pre-production topping out at somewhere over 500 years, BibliOdyssey might well be the slowest book ever published. The serious part of the journey has taken more than a year of team effort involving myself and the UK firm of FUEL Design, headed up by Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell.

When I was first contacted with the suggestion in August 2006 I admit that I was fairly skeptical. "Unpossible, surely?" "How do we get permission?" "Which repositories?" "Who do we contact?" "What laws do we need to know?" "Which images?" "Which countries?" "Thematic or chronological or what?" "What happens if they say no?" "What happens if they say yes?"

Where I only saw insurmountable difficulties, FUEL took the long view, to their credit, softly batting away my initial objections and sketching out a very rough plan for how the project might move forward. They picked out some images, I suggested some institutions, we wrestled over the illustration choices; I did most of the contacting and all of the writing and FUEL did the overall editing, designing and packaging.

So the process has really been about establishing a dialogue with a lot of different people and institutions and being open about our intentions. It probably helped that I've had occasional exchanges with universities and libraries since the site started, so there is a certain familiarity 'out there' about BibliOdyssey. The response to the project idea was overwhelmingly favourable, although individual institutional policies and legal technicalities were sometimes an impediment. Many people went out of their way to accommodate our requests for higher resolution images or supplied interesting background to the books and images or gave recommendations about alternative image choices. We are eternally grateful for their assistance.

The book (like the site) covers a very wide spectrum of styles, time periods and subject matter. You can expect everything from astronomy to zoology and from Art Nouveau to the Renaissance, in something reminiscent of what I call a multi-post (except on steroids and growth hormone and with better grooming habits and no noisy computer fan in the background). I like to think that the trajectory of the book aims somewhere roughly between our internet users' penchant for a concentrated package of beguiling ephemera and as an introductory overview of the cultural wealth accessible from web archives for luddites. [redacted marketspeak: "making it the ideal Christmas present for everybody"]

As a final point I'd offer that, while it might sound like a totally haphazard collection of unrelated visual material, the book is in fact much more of a cohesive and interrelated survey of illustration history than any loose-canon wording here might suggest. The book is also a beautiful product - FUEL have done a wonderful job in the designy-printy stakes, and my objectivity is of course unimpeachable as I was on the other side of the planet and had no role in this facet of production.

While I'm in this rare trumpet-blowing mode: I did an interview with the George Lucas Educational Foundation - Edutopia Magazine - back in July and although it doesn't specifically refer to the book, it was done at exactly the same time as I was writing the book's introduction (which is in fact mostly about the background to the BibliOdyssey website), so inevitably includes a few of the thoughts that re-surface in the book. Because I am nothing if not intellectually lazy. Phantom of the Optical.

Once more for luck..

∧∧∧∧∧Late addition: I was interviewed by Elatia Harris for 3QuarksDaily∧∧∧∧∧

Totentanz Blockbook

Totentanz blockbook w


Totentanz blockbook v


Totentanz blockbook u



Totentanz blockbook s



Totentanz blockbook q


Totentanz blockbook p


Totentanz blockbook o



Totentanz blockbook m



Totentanz blockbook k



Totentanz blockbook g


Totentanz blockbook f


Totentanz blockbook e


Totentanz blockbook d


Totentanz blockbook a


Totentanz blockbook


Totentanz blockbook x


In 15th century Europe, a blockbook was a codex ('gathered volume') in which the text and illustration was printed onto a page from a single block of wood. The wood was engraved (xylography) and gouged out leaving the text and images as raised reliefs which were then inked and placed onto a double sheet of wetted paper.

Before the use of presses, the ink transfer was achieved by rubbing the verso of the paper with a round burnishing tool. The paper was printed on one side only because the rubbing would have ruined the original inked surface on the initial sheet. The pages of the blockbook were folded and assembled, with two printed pages followed by two blanks. The blanks were then glued together giving a continuous book as we know it.

In an age where both literacy and the quest for knowledge was on the increase, the blockbook system appears from this distance to have been a great advance over the earlier painstaking manuscript copying in scriptoriums. The process was cheap (but paper was expensive) and allowed for a form of mass production once the wood blocks had been engraved. As for downsides, carving both text and illustrations in a backwards form (so that when inked and rubbed they would be reversed and appear legibly) was technically demanding and more importantly, the blocks were only useful for one double-page from one book of course.

This relief printing technique had been first seen in Europe in Holland, probably as early as 1420, in playing cards and devotional religious images which had brief captions below the illustrations. The history of development from cards to books is hazy at best due to a dearth of surviving original material, but the blockbook format had its heyday between about 1450 and 1475. The works most closely associated with the technique were the Poor Man's Bible ('Biblia Pauperum'), the biblical Apocalypse story, 'Ars Moriendi' (the Art of Dying) and 'Speculum Humanae Salvationis' (the Mirror of Human Salvation).

But Gutenberg's moveable type printing appeared in 1455 and, like betmax video or the netscape navigator browser of modern times, blockbook printing was eventually made redundant by the appearance of a better technology.

The images above are the oldest known book illustrations of the danse macabre/totentanz/dance of death genre, which had begun in France earlier in the 15th century as a visual response to the effects of the plague. The blockbook of twenty six illustrations was produced between 1455 and 1458 in Germany and depicts the traditional hierarchy of victims - such as Pope, monarchy, clergy, knight, farmer, infirmed, mother and child - visited by death and accompanied by a moralising snatch of verse on the inevitability of the subject's mortality. The illustrations are hand coloured.