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The title page of Antonio Neri's 1612 book L'Arte Vetraria. |
For most of the past five thousand years, the techniques of
glassmaking were passed only in strict confidence from master to apprentice. When artisans
did commit methods to writing, they were held close as precious possessions,
often passed down within families. Inevitably though, some glass recipe
compilations did become public, a few were even purposefully shared. But before
the advent of printed books and some time after, a manuscript was typically propagated
through the laborious and often error-prone process of writing copies out by
hand. Even at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a mere four hundred
years ago, glassmaking techniques and materials were passed primarily through
the apprentice system.
All of that changed forever, in 1612, when a Florentine
priest named Antonio Neri published the first printed book devoted to the ‘art
of glassmaking’. In fact, the title he chose was exactly that: L’Arte Vetraria. [1] Neri’s volume was
noticed almost immediately by technical types; Galileo owned a copy and
supplied one to his friend Federico Cesi, founder of an early scientific
society called the Lincei [lynxes]. In
his introduction, Neri specifically invites anyone curious and willing to apply
themselves to give glassmaking a try, saying, “Unless you purposely foul-up, it
will be impossible to fail”. However, the book did not exactly catch fire with
the general public. Slowly but surely, copies found their way to the
hands of early scientific investigators and also to the hands of glassmakers
throughout Europe . As Italian artisans migrated to
northern Europe , Neri’s book came with them.
In 1661, a
reprint of L’Arte Vetraria was issued
in the priest’s native Florence ,
the next year an English translation was published in London
for the Royal Society and the year after that a Venetian edition appeared.
Within ten years, illustrated Latin and German translations were published and
French and Spanish versions were not far behind. By the year 1800 over two
dozen editions circulated around Europe . It had become
the de facto bible of glassmakers
throughout. There is precious little personal information in the book about
Neri, but it does make clear that he started his career at the Medici court, in
the laboratory of prince Don Antonio de’ Medici. He went on to work in a glass
house in Pisa – one that supplied
fine glassware to the Vatican
– and then spent the bulk of his career, seven years, in Antwerp .
Neri’s book, L’Arte
Vetraria, shined brightest in the hands of an artisan. Neri has the rare
ability to translate non-verbal skills into written words. Where exact amounts
could not be given, he urges the glassmaker to develop an eye for the right
color and to take the final intended purpose into account. He warns against the
pitfalls of roasting a chemical too much or not purifying an ingredient enough.
His book became a platform upon which later glass experimenters added their own
findings and it became a kind of working document. This started with the 1662
English translation by London
physician Christopher Merrett. Not particularly familiar with glassmaking
himself, Merrett canvassed experienced artisans in England
and made extensive notes that he appended to Neri’s original. Merrett also
rearranged Neri’s text in a format that he felt more appropriate. The Latin
edition by Frisius, in Amsterdam ,
restored Neri’s original format, but also retained Merrett’s observations. In
1679, Johann Kunckel made a German translation that added his own extensive
knowledge, producing what is perhaps the most authoritative edition that the
book attained.
In 1697, Jean Haudicquer de Blancourt translated Merrett’s
English edition into French, but he gave no acknowledgment to Neri or Merrett.
Blancourt plagiarized the work, putting his own name as the sole author. He
greatly expanded the page count, but added little or no new material. Where
Neri stipulated, for instance, that artificial gems of all colors could be made
by adding previously discussed pigments to a basic lead glass formula,
Blancourt turned each of these into a separate recipe. In doing this, that one particular
section grew larger than the entirety of Neri’s original book. Two years later,
in 1699, Daniel Brown translated Blancourt’s English-to-French rendition back
into English. From there, the formulas – especially the artificial gem recipes
– started to appear un-attributed in popular craft encyclopedias; the Neri
provenance of these recipes was now erased, but they continued to influence
artisans through the nineteenth century.
Meanwhile, new translations with correct attribution were
published and the book flourished in popularity. Authors built on each other’s annotations; from Neri to Merrett to Kunckel. In 1752, Paul Thiry d’Holbach published
a proper French edition that included the accumulated comments of the three annotators. In 1780, Suárez and Núñez completed their Spanish edition, based on Holbach.[2] And the
tradition continues today; in 2007, Holbach’s edition was used as the basis for
the first ever Japanese translation by Sakata and Ikeda. [3]
On one hand, this particular lineage of the book is remarkable
for the tour of languages; Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and
Japanese. On the other hand, it spans a remarkable period in history, starting
with alchemy and progressing through the volumes to modern science. With each
new set of annotations Neri's book starts with a purely empirical set of recipes,
using classical alchemy. By Kunckel’s edition, experimentation was more
formalized and rigorous; the chemistry behind pigments for coloring glass became
an intense subject of scrutiny. By Holbach’s edition, the physical and
mechanical properties of glass were being investigated and in turn, glass
played an ever-critical role in instrumentation like thermometers, barometers,
microscopes, telescopes and a newly invented electrical device called a Leiden
jar.
Antoine Lavoisier is considered by many to be the ‘father of
modern chemistry’. For all practical purposes, his isolation of oxygen as a
discrete element, in 1778, rang the death knell for classical alchemy. About 1799,
Lavoisier’s good friend Pierre Loysel wrote what was to be the successor to
Neri’s book on glassmaking, Essai sur
l’art de la verrerie [Essays on the art of Glassmaking]. [4] While it never
attained the fame or currency of Neri’s contribution, it did mark the passing
of the mantle to new techniques and a better understanding of the materials. [5] For
nearly two centuries before Loysel, Neri’s book and its derivatives held the
floor as the authoritative reference for glassmakers throughout Europe
and beyond. 187 years is a remarkable run for any book, even more so for a
volume devoted to technical advice and recipes. Antonio Neri would have
probably preferred to be remembered for his work on alchemical transmutation
and medicinal cures, but in the end it was his sensible book on glass
formulation that continues to endear him to anyone interested in the art of
glass.
[1] Antonio Neri, L’Arte vetraria, distinta in libri sette, del R.[everendo] P.[rete/ padre] Antonio Neri fiorentino. Ne quali si scoprono, effetti maravigliosi, & insegnano segreti bellissimi, del vetro nel fuoco & altre cose curiose. All’Illvst.mo et eccell.mo Sig., Il Sig, Don Antonio Medici (Florence: Giunti 1612).
[2] “Sobre el Vidrio Y Los Esmaltes” and “Continuacion Del Arte De Vidrieria” in Memorias instructivas, y curiosas sobre agricultura, comercio, industria, economía, chymica, botanica, historia natural, &c, ... Miguel Gerónimo Suárez y Núñez, ed., tr. (Madrid: Dom Pedro Marin, 1780) v. 4., pp. 185–224 (Mem. 50, prolog); 225–470
[3] L’Arte
Vetraria by Antonio Neri, Japanese Translation, Hironobu Sakata, Mayumi Ikeda eds., tr. (Yokohama: Shunpusha, 2007), a translation of Neri 1759 (Holbach).
[4]Pierre Loysel, Essai sur l’art de la verrerie (Paris, 1799/1800).
[5] For more on Loysel and his book see Marco Beretta, “Unveiling Glass’s Mysteries Lavoisier, Loysel and the First Chemical Treatise on Glass (1765–1799),” in Objects of Chemical Inquiry ed. by Ursula Klein and Carsten Reinhardt (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications/USA, 2014)
[4]Pierre Loysel, Essai sur l’art de la verrerie (Paris, 1799/1800).
[5] For more on Loysel and his book see Marco Beretta, “Unveiling Glass’s Mysteries Lavoisier, Loysel and the First Chemical Treatise on Glass (1765–1799),” in Objects of Chemical Inquiry ed. by Ursula Klein and Carsten Reinhardt (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications/USA, 2014)
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