Hayward Letters Available Online

In 2011 the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) was gifted a series of correspondence between the members of the Hayward Family from the plantation ‘Pieterszorg’ in Surinam (alternate spelling “Suriname”) to Bristol and London in England and Rotterdam and Amsterdam in Holland. The correspondence primarily concerns the family business in the production and trade of sugar and coffee and the related slave trade between 1799 and 1851.
Combined with the extensive Bright Family papers, which document plantations, trade and slavery in the Caribbean, the Hayward letters add to what is becoming an important collection of Atlantic studies research material at the University of Melbourne, unparalleled in Australia. Of particular interest is the fact that the Hayward collection spans the period after the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire (1807) but continued under Dutch colonial rule in Surinam (and elsewhere in the Dutch colonies) until 1863. These letters also shed light on significant events such as the slave revolt in Barbados on 14 April 1816, and the effect of the Napoleonic wars on trade prices. Also revealed is the anxiety at the likely effect on business in the West Indies, if the Dutch should follow the English regarding the abolition of slavery.

Contributor: Denise Driver, University of Melbourne Archives

This internationally significant collection has been digitised and is now available for viewing at the University’s Digital Repository ‘Hayward Family Papers ‘Correspondence relating to ‘Pieterszorg’ Plantation, Surinam’ (2011.0031)

The Hayward letters in addition to the Bright papers provided students with unique primary sources in the University of Melbourne’s free Coursera online subject ‘Generating the Wealth of Nations‘ run by Jeff Borland. See the article ‘Slavery archive used in online course‘ published in the ‘Voice’ for more detail about the collection and its connection to the slave trade.

McPhersons Limited available online June 2014

Planning Machine: Thomas McPherson & Son Engineers Machine Stock List 1899, 1987.0098, McPhersons Limited, University of Melbourne Archives

Established in Melbourne in 1860 McPhersons Limited recently celebrated its 150th year of continuous business, a major achievement in this day and age of company acquisition and competiveness. The key to their success has been their ability to diversify their business and adapt in a fast paced world. Founder Thomas McPherson created an iron mongering business which quickly evolved into a manufacturer of tools, equipment and machinery to service the needs of Victorian settlers. This well known brand had one of the best range of hardware available to satisfy needs of both the domestic home renovator and engineer. Their shop front in Collins Street, became a landmark and a choice destination for several generations of farmers and builders. McPhersons have come a long way since those early days and have completely reinvented their focus from the manufacture of trade and hardware goods to the distribution of domestic product brands such as Manicare nail products and Euromaid kitchen appliances. Going from strength to strength their recent company acquisitions include ‘Revitanail’ and ‘Think Appliances’.

UMA has recently acquired the McPherson’s collection, which contains records, artefacts and photographs which document the growth of this successful Melbourne based family company. A listing for this collection will be available online by June 2014.

Nullius in Verba: The Royal Society’s Two Earliest Books

Earlier this week the Royal Society announced the launch later this year of Royal Society Open Science, an open access peer-reviewed journal publishing scholarly research in all fields scientific and mathematical. The move is seen by the Society’s president, Sir Paul Nurse, as a necessary step to keep pace with the changing face of publishing in the twenty-first century.

Changes in the publishing field is something the Royal Society has seen a lot of throughout its long history. The august body received a Royal Charter to publish relevant works in 1662 (two years after its official founding in November 1660), and will observe the 350th anniversary of its journal Philosophical Transactions in March 2015.

With the recent open access announcement and next year’s anniversary of Philosophical Transactions in mind, this week’s post highlights the Royal Society’s two earliest books: John Evelyn’s Sylva and Robert Hooke’s Micrographia; first editions of each are held by Special Collections.[1]

Sylva

First printed in 1664, Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber was the first work sponsored officially by the Royal Society and the first treatise in English dedicated entirely to forestry.[2] Its author, John Evelyn (1620–1706), writer, intellectual and founding member of the Royal Society, is perhaps best known for his long-running diary kept from 1640 to 1706.

Evelyn initially presented Sylva as a paper to the Royal Society in 1662. The published text sought to encourage tree-planting after the destruction wrought by the Civil War and, it has been argued, to ensure a supply of timber for England’s developing navy and add a further boost to the economy. Evelyn’s book proved highly popular with its intended audience, namely the gentry and aristocracy, who took from it the idea of gardening as an aesthetic pursuit, and his discourse was positively received on the Continent where it stimulated new methods of forest management.[3] Today Sylva is recognised as one of the most influential works on the subject of tree conservation.

First ed. title-page with the arms of the Royal Society. — First ed. title-page with the arms of the Royal Society

The first edition of Sylva contained two appendixes: Pomona: or, an Appendix Concerning Fruit-Trees in Relation to Cider, one of the earliest English essays on cider, and the Kalendarium Hortense: or, Gard’ners Almanac: Directing What He is To Do Monethly [sic] Throughout the Year, which was often reprinted separately and proved to be Evelyn’s most popular work.[4]

Title-page of Evelyn's 'Kalendarium Hortense'. — Title-page of Evelyn’s Kalendarium Hortense

Micrographia

The second text printed for the Royal Society was Robert Hooke’s groundbreaking Micrographia, or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses, published in 1665. Hooke (1635–1703), a natural philosopher and polymath, perfected the compound microscope and put the instrument to good use. His observations touched on a number of subjects, from combustion and diffraction of light, to fossils and artificial silk, and his description of the honeycomb-like structure of a cork gave us the word ‘cell’ to describe the basic biological unit of living organisms.

Micrographia is perhaps most widely known today for its illustrations. The book includes 57 microscopic and 3 telescopic observations, describing for the first time ‘a polyzoon, the minute markings of fish scales, the structure of the bee’s sting [and wings], the compound eyes of the fly, the gnat and its larvae, the structure of feathers, the flea and the louse’.[5] These enlarged images of such minute creatures (Hooke’s louse measures 45.7 cm in length) are as startling today as they must have been for Hooke’s contemporaries over 300 years ago.

Compound eye of the fly (Scheme 24) — Compound eye of the fly (Schema 24)

Like Sylva, Hooke’s Micrographia was an immediate success. It was read by Samuel Pepys, who mentioned the book three times in his diary for January 1664/5 and called it ‘the most ingenious book I have ever read in my life’ (Pepys was also a member of the Royal Society).[6] The text, particularly Hooke’s observations on light and the spectrum, was also studied by Isaac Newton who drew inspiration from it for his Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light (London, 1704).

Anthony Tedeschi (Deputy Curator, Special Collections)

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[1] John Evelyn, Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber (London: Printed by Jo. Martyn and Ja. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society, [1664]); purchased by the Friends of the Baillieu Library

Robert Hooke, Micrographia, or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon (London: Printed by Jo. Martyn and Ja. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society, [1665])

[2] Special Collections also holds copies of the 1670 second edition and 1679 third edition of Sylva, both of which were printed for the Royal Society

[3] http://royalsociety.org/events/2013/sustainability/ [Accessed 19.2.2014]

[4] Diana H. Hook and Jeremy Norman, The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine, 2 vols. (San Francisco: Jeremy Norman & Co., Inc, 1991), i:271

[5] John Carter and Percy H. Muir, eds., Printing and the Mind of Man … (London: Cassell and Company Ltd., 1967 ed.), 88 (no. 147)

[6] Robert Latham and William Matthews, eds., The Diary of Samuel Pepys … 11 vols. (London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd, 1970-1976), vi:2, 17, 18

The Steps to Piranesi

The Piazza di Spagna, the location of the Spanish Steps, led directly to Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s printmaking and antiquities studio in the Strada Felice. Traversing the Steps were the predominately English Grand Tourists who sought to purchase his monumental and evocative etchings as mementoes of their experiences of the eighteenth century continental education. The Steps were also where these tourists would meet their cicerone or Italian guide who would explain the array of incredible Roman ruins, baroque buildings, antiquities and works of art to be explored in the ancient city. These are some of figures that people Piranesi’s streets and monuments. The Arch of Titus, located just outside the Colosseum, was one of the chief destinations of the Tour. Tourists would also rely on guidebooks, which offered not only personal narratives and maps of the best trodden tracks, but also instructions on where to purchase the necessary printed souvenirs.

View of the arch of Titus (Veduta dell'Arco di Tito) — View of the Arch of Titus (Veduta dell’Arco di Tito)

Piranesi was creating his Vedute di Roma (The Views of Rome) throughout his lifetime and they were purchased as single sheets, and sometimes bound together by their collectors. The series comprises two folios of the Baillieu’s first Paris edition of Piranesi’s works which was issued by his sons Francesco and Pietro in 1800-07. This set journeyed to Melbourne by way of its first Roman Catholic archbishop, James Alipius Goold. When he accepted an invitation to leave Rome for Australia, ‘it was on the steps of Santa Maria del Popolo, across from the two mirror churches that Piranesi depicted in his view of the Piazza del Popolo.’[1]

View of the Piazza di Spagna (Veduta di Piazza di Spagna)

Upcoming Piranesi events in Melbourne:

‘Rome: Piranesi’s Vision‘ an exhibition showing in the Keith Murdoch Gallery at the State Library 22 Feb to June 22 2014

‘The Piranesi Effect‘ an exhibition showing at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne 20 Feb to 25 May 2014

‘Piranesi and the Impact of the Late Baroque‘ is a conference at the University of Melbourne 27-28 Feb 2014

Kerrianne Stone (Special Collections Curatorial Assistant (Prints))

[1] Colin Holden, Piranesi’s Grandest Tour from Europe to Australia (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2014), 161

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Woodcuts in the Italian and French Editions

First published by Aldus Manutius in 1499 and praised for its typographical design and early Renaissance woodcut illustrations, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is one of the most famous books to come from a fifteenth-century press.

A second Aldine edition appeared in 1545, followed by the first French edition in 1546. Titled Hypnerotomachie, ou, Discours du Songe Poliphile, the translation was printed in Paris by Jacques Kerver. Its woodcuts in the Mannerist style were based on the Aldine editions, but adapted to suit French tastes and included an additional 14 illustrations.

The identity of the artists who executed the woodcuts in the Italian and French editions remains a subject of debate amongst academic circles. The designs in the 1499 edition have been associated with Benedetto Bordon, Andrea Mantegna, Gentile Bellini, and even a young Raphael.[1] The illustrations in the 1546 French edition exhibit evidence of more than one artist at work, with the painter Jean Cousin and the architect and sculptor Jean Goujon considered likely candidates for the best woodcuts.

Special Collections is fortunate to count the first Italian and French editions of the Hypnerotomachia amongst its holdings of early printed material, allowing for the following comparison of illustrations in two of the hand-press period’s most beautifully illustrated books.

Anthony Tedeschi (Deputy Curator, Special Collections)

[1] http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/23.73.1