John Green. Notes on a neglected eighteenth century geographer and cartographer

Résumé

Le globe est composé de 12 fuseaux, actuellement collés cote à cote. La diamètre est de 73,5 cm.

Les planches originales, gravées sur cuivre, au nombre de 12, devaient mesurer 40 × 60 cm environ.

Les contours et la nomenclature sont postérieurs à 1581 et antérieurs à 1587. Six cartouches sont restés vides. 80 légendes sont inscrites sur diverses parties du monde.

L'auteur, anonyme, s'est servi d'une carte d'Ortelius ‐ dont on ne connait qu'un tirage unique ‐ publiée par Gérard de Jode en 1564, et d'une carte de Postel faite en 1581, dont il n'existe aussi qu'un tirage unique de 1621, ainsi que des cartes du Theatrum d'Ortelius de 1570. Certaines parties du monde, prises à Postel, furent utilisées par Cornelius de Jode dans son Speculum en 1593.

Le globe est antérieur à la grande mappemonde de Plancius de 1592, il est probablement anversois et aurait été établi dans l'entourage de Gérard de Jode. C'est aussi un unicum.

Le cartouche décoratif du 12e fuseau représente un personnage, peut‐être l'auteur, le graveur ou l'éditeur.     

John Bolton's Cinder Oven: An eighteenth century industrial re-use of a mediaeval tower

Abstract

In one of the two mediaeval towers built to defend the River Wensum in Norwich there is a beehive coke oven. Documentary evidence suggests that this 'cinder oven', as it is known locally, was built in c. 1792 by John Bolton to produce coke for his nearby maltings. Although unused for over a century, it is still intact and in relatively good condition. This short paper describes its history and structure.     

Rapin,Hume and the identity of the historian in eighteenth century England

Paul de Rapin-Thoyras's History of England (1725–1731) has hitherto occupied a marginal position in most accounts of eighteenth-century historiography, despite its considerable readership and influence. This paper charts the publication history of the work, its politics and style, and the methods through which Rapin's British translators and booksellers successfully proposed the work as the model for new historical enquiry, and its author as the model for a modern historical writer. It is further argued that David Hume's writings and letters relating to his History of England (1754–1763) suggest a direct and critical engagement with Rapin's work, and with the identity of the historian, as it had been constructed through Rapin's success. By focussing on the mechanisms of production and circulation, and the impact which these had on the practice of historical writing in the eighteenth century, the paper aims to demonstrate the value of applying social–historical methods to the study of historical writing.     

The impact of western science and technology on 'ukiyo-e' prints and book illustrations in late eighteenth and nineteenth century Japan

In the Edo period (c. 1600-1868), exposure to Western art, science and technology encouraged Japanese 'ukiyo-e' (pictures of the floating world) artists to experiment with Western perspective in woodblock prints and book illustrations. We can see its early influence in the work of Utagawa Hiroshige (1787-1858), as well as Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861). Unlike Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi lived to see the opening of the port of Yokohama to trade with the West in 1859. A whole genre of Yokohama prints emerged and one of the key artists was Utagawa Sadahide (1807-1873). In his illustrated books entitled 'Yokohama kaikō kenbunshi' (A Record of Things Seen and Heard in the Open Port of Yokohama) (1862), Sadahide plays with perspective in an effort to represent the dynamic changes that Japan was undergoing in its encounter with the West at the time. In the work of later artists such as Hiroshige III (1843-1894), Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915) and Inoue Yasuji (1864-1889), we can see growing efforts to depict light, shadow and depth, and a continuing fascination with the steam locomotive and the changes occurring in the Tokyo-Yokohama region as Japan entered the Meiji period (1868-1912).     

On the frontiers of Europe,not all musket balls were round; accuracy and penetration of various types of military small arms munitions from the mid seventeenth century to the early eighteenth century

While many armies began to adopt large calibre weapons in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, frontier conflicts in the outer reaches of Europe and in North America have provided evidence for the retention of smaller calibres, particularly evidenced through the archaeological recovery of ammunition. Present within these assemblages are various forms of non-standard ammunition — i.e. not round — including bullets with casting sprues still attached at the time of firing. This paper provides an assessment of the combat effectiveness of these various types of ammunition through a series of firing tests using replicated ammunition.