Download or read book Science and the Secrets of Nature written by William Eamon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By explaining how to sire multicolored horses, produce nuts without shells, and create an egg the size of a human head, Giambattista Della Porta's Natural Magic (1559) conveys a fascination with tricks and illusions that makes it a work difficult for historians of science to take seriously. Yet, according to William Eamon, it is in the "how-to" books written by medieval alchemists, magicians, and artisans that modern science has its roots. These compilations of recipes on everything from parlor tricks through medical remedies to wool-dyeing fascinated medieval intellectuals because they promised access to esoteric "secrets of nature." In closely examining this rich but little-known source of literature, Eamon reveals that printing technology and popular culture had as great, if not stronger, an impact on early modern science as did the traditional academic disciplines.

Download or read book Mappae Clavicula written by Thomas Phillipps and published by . This book was released on 1847 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Openness Secrecy Authorship written by Pamela O. Long and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-04-30 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the book and intellectual property that includes military technology and military secrets. Winner of The Morris D. Forkosch Prize from the Journal of the History of Ideas In today's world of intellectual property disputes, industrial espionage, and book signings by famous authors, one easily loses sight of the historical nature of the attribution and ownership of texts. In Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Pamela Long combines intellectual history with the history of science and technology to explore the culture of authorship. Using classical Greek as well as medieval and Renaissance European examples, Long traces the definitions, limitations, and traditions of intellectual and scientific creation and attribution. She examines these attitudes as they pertain to the technical and the practical. Although Long's study follows a chronological development, this is not merely a general work. Long is able to examine events and sources within their historical context and locale. By looking at Aristotelian ideas of Praxis, Techne, and Episteme. She explains the tension between craft and ideas, authors and producers. She discusses, with solid research and clear prose, the rise, wane, and resurgence of priority in the crediting and lionizing of authors. Long illuminates the creation and re-creation of ideas like "trade secrets," "plagiarism," "mechanical arts," and "scribal culture." Her historical study complicates prevailing assumptions while inviting a closer look at issues that define so much of our society and thought to this day. She argues that "a useful working definition of authorship permits a gradation of meaning between the poles of authority and originality," and guides us through the term's nuances with clarity rarely matched in a historical study.

Download or read book Copper and Bronze in Art written by David A. Scott and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2002 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a review of 190 years of literature on copper and its alloys. It integrates information on pigments, corrosion and minerals, and discusses environmental conditions, conservation methods, ancient and historical technologies.

Download or read book Medieval Latin written by Frank Anthony Carl Mantello and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organized with the assistance of an international advisory committee of medievalists from several disciplines, Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide is a new standard guide to the Latin language and literature of the period from c. A.D. 200 to 1500. It promises to be indispensable as a handbook in university courses in Medieval Latin and as a point of departure for the study of Latin texts and documents in any of the fields of medieval studies. Comprehensive in scope, the guide provides introductions to, and bibliographic orientations in, all the main areas of Medieval Latin language, literature, and scholarship. Part One consists of an introduction and sizable listing of general print and electronic reference and research tools. Part Two focuses on issues of language, with introductions to such topics as Biblical and Christian Latin, and Medieval Latin pronunciation, orthography, morphology and syntax, word formation and lexicography, metrics, prose styles, and so on. There are chapters on the Latin used in administration, law, music, commerce, the liturgy, theology and philosophy, science and technology, and daily life. Part Three offers a systematic overview of Medieval Latin literature, with introductions to a wide range of genres and to translations from and into Latin. Each chapter concludes with a bibliography of fundamental works--texts, lexica, studies, and research aids. This guide satisfies a long-standing need for a reference tool in English that focuses on medieval latinity in all its specialized aspects. It will be welcomed by students, teachers, professional latinists, medievalists, humanists, and general readers interested in the role of Latin as the learned lingua franca of western Europe. It may also prove valuable to reference librarians assembling collections concerned with Latin authors and texts of the postclassical period. ABOUT THE EDITORS F. A. C. Mantello is professor of Medieval Latin at The Catholic University of America. A. G. Rigg is professor of English and medieval studies and chairman of the Medieval Latin Committee at the University of Toronto's Centre for Medieval Studies. PRASIE FOR THE BOOK "This extraordinary volume, joint effort of dozens of scholars in eight countries, will be in constant use for research, for advising students and designing courses, and for answering the queries of nonmedievalist colleagues. . . . Medieval Latin provides a foundation for advances in research and teaching on a wide front. . . . Though Mantello and Rigg's Medieval Latin is a superb reference volume, I recommend that it also be read from beginning to end--in small increments, of course. The rewards will be sheaves of notes and an immensely enriched appreciation of Medieval Latin and its literature."--Janet M. Martin, Princeton University, Speculum "A remarkable achievement, and no one interested in medieval Latin can afford to be without it."--Journal of Ecclesiastical History "Everywhere there is clarity, conclusion, judicious illustration, and careful selection of what is central. This guide is a major achievement and will serve Medieval Latin studies extremely well for the foreseeable future."--The Classical Review

Download or read book The Book of the Secrets of Alchemy written by Constantino de Pisa and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1990 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Liber secretorum alchimie" is an attempt to introduce alchemy into Aristotle's science: manipulating metals, astronomy, astrology, geography and even theology are combined in these lecture notes taken by a 13th century medical student to make a fascinating review of themes which were hotly debated in medieval Italian university circles.

Download or read book Mappae Clavicula written by and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge.

Download or read book On Divers Arts written by Theophilus and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I have made it my concern to hunt out this technique for your study as I learned it by looking and listening." On Divers Arts, c. 1122, is the oldest extant manual on artistic crafts to be written by a practicing artist. Before Theophilus, manuscripts on the arts came from scholars and philosophers standing outside the actual profession. On Divers Arts describes actual 12th-century techniques in painting, glass, and metalwork, which the Benedictine author wished to pass on to those gifted by God with a talent for making beautiful things. Theophilus teaches, with rigorous attention to fact but also with great reverence the making of pigments for fresco painting, the manufacture of glue, the technique of gold leaf on parchment (the first recorded European reference to true paper), how to blow glass and design stained glass windows, how to fashion gold and silver chalices, and how to make a pipe organ and church bells. Precise instruction on enameling, chasing, repoussé, niello, and beaded wire work prove Theophilus's first-hand knowledge of his craft. While 90 percent of Theophilus's writing is sound technical knowledge, medieval folk lore occasionally spices his text: "Tools are also made harder by hardening them in the urine of a small red-headed boy than by doing so in plain water." But the magnificent fact of On Divers Art remains its status as the first technical treatise on painting, glass, and metalwork, for which actual specimens still survive. The editors have taken care to ensure both philological and technological accuracy for this authoritative edition of a medieval classic, a manual of great importance to craftsmen, historians of art and science, and all who delight in the making of the beautiful.

Download or read book Mappae Clavicula written by Cyril Stanley Smith and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt written by Carl F. Barnes Jr. and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new facsimile edition of the Portfolio of the 13th-century Picard artist Villard de Honnecourt is the first ever to be published in color. The thirty-three leaves are reproduced at actual size from high-quality color transparencies to ensure the best possible color reproduction of the drawings. One can now see variations in inks and quill strokes, traces of preliminary drawings, and corrections made by the artist. This study is also the first to give a thorough description of the condition of the leaves, analysis of each drawing in the portfolio individually, and new transcriptions and literal and free translations of the inscriptions. The opening chapter covers the history and physical condition of the portfolio, including reassigning "hands" to text found on the leaves. The author analyses the tools and inks used, Villard's drawing technique and style, and evaluates Villard as an artist-draftsman. Chapter II, the body of the book, is devoted to detailed analyses of the leaves, one by one, and their drawings and inscriptions. These analyses are of interest to those concerned with medieval technology and theology as well as to those interested in medieval art and architecture. Chapter III is a new biography of Villard that challenges the many wild speculations of the last century and a half about Villard, separating obvious fiction from possible fact. Barnes analyzes in detail Villard's drawings of different Gothic buildings and makes a case for Villard having been a lay representative of the cathedral chapter at Cambrai, one of the buildings Villard drew. An extensive bibliography of Villard studies and a glossary of Villard's technical and artistic terms complete this important new study.

Download or read book Mappae Clavicula written by Thomas Phillipps and published by . This book was released on 1847 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book English Medieval Industries written by John Blair and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is intended as a modern successor to L.F. Salzman's "English Industries in the Middle Ages" (1913). The approach to each industry is by material, discussing its acquisition, working and sale as a finished product. Only industries that resulted in the production of consumer goods and where substantial numbers of artefacts survive from the Middle Ages are dealt with (fishing and brewing are therefore omitted); the text is illustrated by pictures of surviving objects and contemporary representations of medieval work.

Download or read book Franciscans and the Elixir of Life written by Zachary A. Matus and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the major ambitions of medieval alchemists was to discover the elixir of life, a sovereign remedy capable not only of healing the body but of transforming it. Given the widespread belief that care for the body came at the cost of care for the soul, it might seem surprising that any Franciscan would pursue the elixir, but those who did were among its most outspoken and optimistic advocates. They believed they could distill a substance that would purify, transmute, and ennoble the human body as well as the soul. In an age when Christians across Europe were seeking material evidence for their faith and corporeal means of practicing their devotion, alchemy, and the elixir in particular, offered a way to bridge the terrestrial and the celestial. Framed as a history around science, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life focuses on alchemy as a material practice and investigates the Franciscan discourses and traditions that shaped the pursuit of the elixir, providing a rich examination of alchemy and religiosity. Zachary A. Matus makes new connections between alchemy, ritual life, apocalypticism, and the particular commitment of the Franciscan Order to the natural world, shedding new light on the question of why so many people claimed to have made, seen, or used alchemical compounds that could never have existed.

Download or read book Medieval Religion and Technology written by Lynn Townsend White and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1978-01-01 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays fra 1940-1975, med udgangspunkt i middelalderens teknologiske frembringelser, og videnskabsmænd.

Download or read book The Varnish and the Glaze written by Marjolijn Bol and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-04-21 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history of the techniques, materials, and aesthetic ambitions that gave rise to the radiant verisimilitude of Jan van Eyck’s oil paintings on panel. Panel painters in both the middle ages and the fifteenth century created works that evoke the luster of precious stones, the sheen of polished gold and silver, and the colorful radiance of stained glass. Yet their approaches to rendering these materials were markedly different. Marjolijn Bol explores some of the reasons behind this radical transformation by telling the history of the two oil painting techniques used to depict everything that glistens and glows—varnish and glaze. For more than a century after his death, the fifteenth-century painter Jan van Eyck was widely credited with inventing varnish and oil paint, on account of his unique visual realism. Once this was revealed to be a myth, the verisimilitude of his work was attributed instead to a new translucent painting technique: the glaze. Today, most theories about how Van Eyck achieved this realism revolve around the idea that he was the first to discover or refine the glazing technique. Bol, however, argues that, rather than being a fifteenth-century refinement, varnishing and glazing began centuries before. Drawing from an extensive body of recipes, Bol pieces together how varnishes and glazes were first developed as part of the medieval art of material mimesis. Artisans embellished metalwork and wood with varnishes and glazes to imitate gold and gems; infused rock crystal with oil, resin, and colorants to imitate more precious minerals; and oiled parchment to transform it into the appearance of green glass. Likewise, medieval panel painters used varnishes and glazes to create the look of enamel, silk, and more. The explorations of materials and their optical properties by these artists stimulated natural philosophers to come up with theories about transparent and translucent materials produced by the earth. Natural historians, influenced by medieval artists’ understanding of refraction and reflection, developed theories about gems, their creation, and their optical qualities.

Download or read book Roman Glass written by Stuart James Fleming and published by UPenn Museum of Archaeology. This book was released on 1999 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing analogies between the Roman society and our own, Fleming (U. of Pennsylvania Museum) presents the path of development followed by the Roman glassworking industry, and illustrates the aesthetic and technical response of an industry to changes in personal taste. Where written sources were lacking, he uses images such as manuscripts and mosaics, relief decoration on silverware and coffins, and so forth. In the foreword, he states that when he talks of glass reflecting the Roman culture, he means that it reflects the way people behaved towards one another. Contains many color illustrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Phillipps MS 3715 written by Sir Thomas Phillipps and published by . This book was released on 1846 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Page proofs and galleys of a letter from Sir Thomas Phillipps to Albert Way dated 9 Jan 1846 and transcription of a Latin text entitled "Mappae clavicula" on the preparation of pigments and decorative arts processes dating to the 12th century. Manuscript notations and revisions in margins by Sir Thomas Phillipps.