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)
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

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

 

Poliphilo enters a pathless forest (1499)
Poliphilo enters a pathless forest (1499)
Poliphilo enters a pathless forest (1546)
Poliphilo enters a pathless forest (1546)
Poliphilo encounters a wolf in his dreamscape (1499)
Poliphilo encounters a wolf in his dreamscape (1499)
Poliphilo encounters a wolf in his dreamscape (1546)
Poliphilo encounters a wolf in his dreamscape (1546)
The pyramid with obelisk (1499)
The pyramid with obelisk (1499)
The pyramid with obelisk (1546)
The pyramid with obelisk (1546)
Dancers carved on the base of a statue (1499)
Dancers carved on the base of a statue (1499)
Dancers carved on the base of a statue (1546)
Dancers carved on the base of a statue (1546)
Poliphilo flees from a dragon (1499)
Poliphilo flees from a dragon (1499)
Poliphilo flees from a dragon (1546)
Poliphilo flees from a dragon (1546)
Poliphilo meets Theude and her servants (1499)
Poliphilo meets Theude and her servants (1499)
Poliphilo meets Theude and her servants (1546)
Poliphilo meets Theude and her servants (1546)
From the second triumph (1499)
From the second triumph (1499)
From the second triumph (1546)
From the second triumph (1546)
The bridge over the frozen lake; where are the souls? (1499)
The bridge over the frozen lake; where are the souls? (1499)
The bridge over the frozen lake; complete with souls (1546)
The bridge over the frozen lake; complete with souls (1546)

Bound for a Russian Princess

Towards the end of last year I highlighted a collection of Russian satirical journals and postcards from the 1905 Revolution. Today’s post continues the Russian theme by examining the provenance of an early twentieth-century set of the complete works of Tolstoy.

 

Frontispiece and title-page, Complete Works of Tolstoy (1913)

 

The set was published in St. Petersburg by P. V. Lukovnikov in 1913 and 1914. It consists of four volumes bound in two. The first two volumes are from the twenty-first edition and volumes three and four from the twenty-sixth and forty-sixth editions respectively. The attractive binding is three-quarter green morocco with marbled boards and pastedowns. In the upper-left corner of the front board on both volumes is a gilt-stamped ownership mark: the Cyrillic letters ‘Λ Β’ (‘L V’) with a crown above:

 

Binding with Vasilchikova stamp

 

Through a colleague of the antiquarian book dealer Simon Beattie, the ownership stamp has been identified as belonging to Princess Lydia Leonidovna Vyazemsky Vasilchikova (1886–1948). The set is from Vasilchikova’s private library in St. Petersburg and was likely bound by A. A. Schnell, a master bookbinder working for the Russian Imperial Court.

 

Portrait of Princess Lydia Leonidovna Vyazemsky Vasilchikova
Portrait of Princess Lydia Leonidovna Vyazemsky Vasilchikova (www.genealogics.org)

 

The Family

Lydia’s father was Prince Leonid Dmitrievitch Vyazemsky (1848–1909), a general in the Russian cavalry, Governor of Astrakhan, and member of the Council of the Empire. On 12 May 1909, Lydia married Prince Illarion Sergeyevich Vasilchikov (1881–1969), who belonged to one of Russia’s oldest aristocratic families and served as a member of the Fourth Duma under Tsar Nicholas II.

Lydia, however, was not a stereotypical staid wife of a politician. According to Beattie’s contact, she studied English at Oxford, was fluent in several European languages, and was fond of horse riding and photography. She served as a Red Cross nurse close to the Eastern Front during the First World War, and was awarded four medals, including two St George medals for bravery.

In 1919, the Vasilchikovs fled the upheaval and violence of the 1917 Revolution aboard the SS Princess Ena, sent to Russia by Britain’s George V to rescue his aunt the Empress Marie Feodorovna. Destitute, the Vasilchikovs travelled across Europe as refugees to the family’s Lithuanian estates. During the Second World War, two of their children, Tatiana and Marie, moved to Berlin in 1940 to find work and were employed by the Foreign Ministry’s Information Office. The sisters later published books about their experiences: Tatiana: Five Passports in a Shifting Europe (1976) and Marie’s Berlin Diaries: 1940–1945 (1988).

 

The Library

Unfortunately, little information exists regarding the Vasilchikov family libraries, except that they owned several collections in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and throughout their numerous estates. It was learnt through Beattie’s contact that many family members were killed after the 1917 Revolution, and their books sold or intentionally destroyed during the 1920s and 1930s; a sad fate that befell many of Russia’s aristocratic families and their collections during those turbulent early decades of the Soviet Union.

Anthony Tedeschi (Deputy Curator, Special Collections)

—

Polnoe sobranīe sochinenīĭ gr. A.K. Tolstogo (St. Petersburg: [P. V. Lukovnikov], 1913-1914); from the personal library of Princess Lydia Leonidovna Vyazemsky Vasilchikova; donated to the Melbourne University Library by Mrs. O. P. Hohlov in 1968.

Революция! Russian Satirical Journals from the 1905 Revolution

In 1977 the University of Melbourne Library acquired a large collection of Russian material from a private collector.[1] Included among the boxes of books, pamphlets and serials was a collection of satirical journals consisting of 53 titles in 149 issues dating to the first Russian Revolution (1905–1907).

 

Voron (The Raven), no. 1, [1905?]

The revolution was sparked on 22 January [9 January Old Style] 1905, when members of the Russian military and paramilitary opened fire on crowds of people gathering throughout St Petersburg and converging on the Winter Palace to petition Tsar Nicholas II for better working conditions and civil rights. Hundreds of men, women and children were killed or wounded. The brutal action led to national strikes, peasant uprisings, and attacks on figures of authority by revolutionaries and anarchists.

In an attempt to stem the upheaval, the tsar enacted a series of political and social reforms in the October Manifesto (1905), which led to the creation of the Duma and included a loosening of restrictions on the press and freedom of expression. By late November/ early December many revolutionary satirical journals began to appear on the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and eventually in other major cities across the empire.[2]

 

Vampir (The Vampire), no. 2, 1906

 

These journals, with such evocative titles as Adskaia pochta (Hellish Post), Bich (The Scourge), Krasnyi smekh (Red Laughter), Pulemet (The Machine Gun), Sekira (The Pole-Axe), and Zabiaka (The Trouble-maker), are filled with prose, verse, and illustrations and cartoons, either lampooning the tsar and his ministers, or offering a sometimes visceral commentary on the repressive and brutal tactics of the imperial government. Many journals were collaborative efforts that brought together some of Russia’s best writers and artists of the time, such as Leonid Andreev, Leon Bakst, Alexander Benois, Ivan Bilibin, Ivan Bunin, Korney Chukovsky, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Maksim Gorky, Boris Kustodiev, Yevgeny Lansere, and Leonid Pasternak.

 

Pulemet (The Machine Gun), no. 1, [13 November] 1905

Most of these periodicals had very short runs. Some of them appeared in only one issue before the authorities intervened to prevent further publication. Various editors attempted to circumvent the censors by changing a publication’s title. Burelom (Storm-Wood), for example, was shutdown in 1905 after four issues, but resurfaced as Burya (The Storm) early the following year. Burya reached a fourth issue, too, before being closed. It was later resurrected as the aptly titled Bureval (Storm Debris).[3]


Burelom (Storm-Wood), Christmas issue, 25 December 1905

 

In addition to journals, propagandist postcards were also produced. Some of the 39 examples in the collection were printed by chromolithography. Others were hand drawn and then reproduced either by hand or mimeographed in outline and then hand-coloured.

 

Russian Satirical Postcards, 1905 Revolution, nos. 29-34

 

According to Tobie Mathew, who has been collecting and researching these cards for a number of years:

‘Leftist postcards were published by both revolutionary activists and legally registered publishers, many of whom were motivated as much by commerce as they were ideology. Some were used and displayed with subversive aims in mind, but most were bought for private consumption; these were objects that in reflecting political beliefs also served to amuse and divert’.

Regarding their rarity, Mathew commented that such cards:

‘Don’t come onto the market very often … The postcards were avidly collected at the time but being more ephemeral objects they are far less likely to have survived the various upheavals’.

Collections of Russian satirical journals are found in institutions across the northern hemisphere. The author suspects that the collection of journals (and especially the postcards) held by Special Collections is the only one of its kind in Australia, making it a unique resource ripe for research by local and regional scholars and students.

Readers can view the often striking (and sometimes lurid) journal cover illustrations and postcards on the Special Collections Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uomspecialcollections/sets/

[Sincere thanks to Simon Beattie and Tobie Mathew for offering their expertise so freely]

Anthony Tedeschi (Deputy Curator, Special Collections)

References

[1] See Leena Siegelbaum’s ‘The O’Flaherty Collection’ published in Australian Academic and Research Libraries (Sept. 1980): 189–194.

[2] The first journal was Zritel (Spectator), which appeared in June 1905. The University of Southern California’s ‘Russian Satirical Journals’ website notes journals were published in Armenian, Estonian, Georgian, Polish, Ukrainian and Yiddish.

[3] David King and Cathy Porter. Blood & Laughter: Caricatures from the 1905 Revolution (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983), 42.

Covered in Silk & Satin: Embroidered Bookbindings

Among the decorative and fine bindings held by Special Collections are two examples of fabric/ textile bindings with embroidered decorations.

Embroidered book covers were popular during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though earlier examples, such as the fourteenth-century embroidered binding on the British Library’s Felbrigge Psalter (Sloane MS 2400), do survive.

Textile bindings were produced primarily by professional embroiderers, but were also made by individual female owners. They were very much in vogue in England during the first half of the seventeenth century, particularly as covers for small devotional books, such as this copy of The Book of Common Prayer (London, 1629) that measures just eleven centimetres in height. The cover is made of white satin over blue silk, with birds and flowers embroidered with different coloured silk set within frames of gold thread, with gold thread borders on the spine and both sides.

Along with silk and satin, velvet was another popular textile for book covers. The Special Collections copy of L’Office de la Vierge Marie pour tous les temps de l’anee (Paris, [1636?]), bound with Pierre Coton’s Dévotes oraisons pour tous chrestiens et catholiques (Paris, 1637), is in a contemporary green velvet binding, heavily embroidered with floral motifs in silver thread and sequins, bordered on three sides by silver wire.

Resources

Much has been written on embroidered bindings. The British Library’s English Embroidered Bookbindings webpage provides a brief history of the subject and includes a select bibliography for further reading. One of the texts listed, Cyril Davenport’s English Embroidered Bookbindings (London, 1899), can be read on-line.

In addition to the resources noted by the BL, one can add the relevant sections in Bernard Middleton’s A History of English Craft Bookbinding Techniques (London, 1978; pp. 121–124), David Pearson’s English Bookbinding Styles, 1450–1800 (New Castle [DE], 2004; pp. 20–22), and Marianne Tidcombe’s Women Bookbinders, 1880–1920 (New Castle [DE], 1996; pp. 77–90).

Embroidered bindings can also be found throughout social media. They have been blogged about elsewhere (e.g. The Collation, Echoes from the Vault); there are pages in Pinterest (page 1 and page 2) and on Flickr (University of Glasgow Library); and one binding has even made its way onto YouTube compliments of the Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University.

Further examples can be seen on the Princeton University Hand Bookbinding website, and over 120 specimens can be found in the British Library’s Database of Bookbindings.

Anthony Tedeschi (Deputy Curator, Special Collections)

—

The Booke of Common Prayer (London: Imprinted by Bonham Norton and John Bill, 1629), bound with The Whole Booke of Psalmes (London: Imprinted [by Felix Kingston] for the Company of Stationers, 1630)

L’Office de la Vierge Marie pour tous les temps de l’anee (Paris: Robert Denain, [1636?]), bound with Pierre Coton’s Dévotes oraisons pour tous chrestiens et catholiques (Paris: Marin Vaugon, 1637)

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