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Tony,
http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2010articles/article1.html
Excellent!
Many thanks for posting a pointer to this. I, for one, would never
have seen it otherwise. <bg>
In my day at the British
Library we were all aware
of the Bagford Collection,
but nobody knew exactly
what was in it, since the
maps are widely and randomly
dispersed. As Tom delicately
puts it, glossing over the
collection's chaotic
arrangement, Bagford was a
man 'with more of an
appreciation than an agenda'.
I, too, had no idea there were maps in the Bagford Collection ... not
that this will ever be more than a curiosity for me, not being a real
map-person, and all. ;-)
But Harper got my full attention with his catalog item f. 2v (2), the
existence of which I'd not known about before, and have a considerable
interest in.
I have been working on Richard Waller (discussed by Harper on pp. 2,
17 & 18 of 25) for quite a while now, and have long been planning to
post HTML transcriptions of some of his work, including the color
chart of 1686.
Unfortunately, I've never seen the chart except in black&white and was
delighted to discover from Harper that there's a copy of it
(presumably in the original colors, albeit perhaps pretty faded by
now?) in the Bagford collection!
Harper writes briefly about it:
"More obvious reasons can be found for Bagford's inclusion of
other prints in Harl. 5935. Richard Waller's *Tabula Colorum
Physiologica* of 1686, one of the earliest colour charts,
would have been acquired via Bagford's acquaintance with
Waller through the Society of Antiquaries ..."
which description I can add to a little bit, in the process raising a
related issue about the maps in the collection, and why/when Bagford
might have collected them.
Waller's color chart was produced as part of the Royal Society's
ongoing study of various industrial arts & trades -- chief among them,
printing -- and was published in the Society's _Philosophical
Transactions_ (No. 179 for 1686), in an essay titled "A Catalogue of
Simple and Mixt Colours, with a Specimen of Each Colour Prefixt to Its
Proper Name: By R. Waller, Fellow of the Royal Society."
As far as I know, Bagford was never an F.R.S., but Waller certainly
was, as was Humfrey Wanley, who in 1707 published an article in the
_Transactions_ titled "An Account of Mr. *Bagford*'s Collections for
his History of *Printing*, by Mr. *Humfrey Wanley*, F.R.S."
After I read Harper's _eBLJ_ article, I went back and had a look at
Wanley's piece, because I didn't remember any discussion of maps, and
indeed, there is none.
Wanley gives a fairly detailed description of Bagford's collection as
of 1707: mostly title-pages, frontispieces and fragments from books of
all kinds (including almanacs, bibles, law books), printed at London
and abroad, as well as a large collection of printer's devices, some
specimens of type, specimens of paper, a collection of laws & statutes
regulating the press, patents for printing, proposals for publishing,
catalogues of all sorts having to do with the visual and graphic arts,
epitaphs and portraits of those involved with the print trade,
assorted prints, and "Some German Cards."
According to Wanley, Bagford had
"Cuts of *Monuments*, *Tombs*, *Funerals*, &c. in *England*.
"Cuts of the same in Foreign Parts, with the Cuts of the
manner of *Executing Criminals*.
"Cuts with some Drawings of Habits of divers Nation, of
several Trades, of *Utensils*, *Weapons*, *Fountains*, or
*Wells*, with other Prints useful in *Joyners* and *Masons*
Work.
"Cuts of Figures in different Postures, as *Writing*,
*Reading* and *Meditating*; with all the *Utensils* used in
Writing, *&c.* during some Ages. Cuts of *Schools*. The
*Heads* of some *Arithmeticians*; *Alphabets*; Specimens of
*Knot work*, and some *Great Text* and other Letters.
Specimens of *Letter Graving*. *Heads* of Writing Masters,
*Dutch*, *French*, *English*. Specimens of Letters Engraven
in *Small*; as also of *Short Hand*, &c. Heads of *Short Hand
Writers*, and Specimens of their Works, and many other
things."
Pretty much everything *but* maps. ;-)
Even more curious, Wanley's essay was published in the 1707 _Phil.
Trans._ along with Bagford's own "An Essay on the Invention of
Printing" (both originally in the form of letters which had been sent
to Hans Sloane, then secretary of the Royal Society).
Bagford's _PT_ essay -- which advertised the content of his planned
book on the history of printing, and was probably intended to entice
subscribers (it didn't, and his book never made it into print) --
opens with a lengthy discussion of "the making of Cards" (playing
cards, not sea cards), which method Bagford believes
"to be their way of Printing first at *Harlem*, and those
Books abovementioned"
; i.e.,
"The Cutting of the Molds or Blocks for making our Playing
Cards, is after the same manner as those for the Books [first]
printed at *Harlem*."
Again, there's much discussion of "cards", and their central role in
the history of printing, but not a word about maps.
And I find that most curious.
Bagford's audience was, of course, very interested in cartography, and
papers on the map-maker's art occasionally appear in the
_Transactions_, such as John Evelyn's "An advertisement of a way of
making more lively counterfaits of nature in wax, then are extant in
painting: and of a new kinde of maps in a low relievo; both practised
in France" (1665).
So I take this to mean that Bagford didn't, as of 1707, yet have any
maps in his collection.
I am NOT, however, an expert on Bagford, and could well be wrong in my
interpretation of what literary theorists (spec. Pierre Macherey) call
"the silences of the text." ;-)
Before I close, one final tidbit for Tony, which has to do with a
discussion I've been having on a different list about the metals used
for Renaissance printing plates.
(I had asked Tony if he knew of any bronze plates used at this time by
European map-makers: FWIW, he didn't, and if any MapHisters out there
do, please let us know!)
Anyway, this is from Bagford's _Phil. Trans._ essay published in 1707:
"We may rationally conjecture, that Printing with Plates of
Pewter, Brass, or Iron, either Graved or Eat with *Aqua
fortis*, was first practis'd by the Working Goldsmiths; for
they have a way of taking off the Impressions of their Work,
by the Smoak of a Lamp, which, perhaps, gave the Hint to the
Graving on Brass. We have a dark Story of it in some Authors,
but I shall inlarge upon this Subject [i.e., in his
forthcoming book on the history of printing]."
I know of one English map-maker -- Humphrey Cole -- who was a
goldsmith. As Tony well knows, and probably plenty of other MapHisters
as well, Cole engraved the *Map of the Holy Land* printed with the
Bishops' Bible.
So there is perhaps an oblique connection here with Bagford's
mysterious collection of "maps and fragments", as documented by Harper....
Deborah
_____
Deborah Taylor-Pearce
[email protected]
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