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Villard's Legacy is a volume in memory of the celebrated iconoclastic historian, Jean Gimpel. AVISTA was Gimpel's brainchild, and the contributions here reflect his concern to elucidate the interactions of technology, science and art within medieval culture. The first papers offer new interpretations of aspects of Villard de Honnecourt's portfolio, which Gimpel rightly recognized and promoted as a unique and precious record of pre-modern technology and culture. This thirteenth-century manuscript is now known to a wider public as the earliest testimony left by a master builder in Gothic Europe. Of particular significance, a Compagnon du Devoir initiated in the same oral tradition as Villard opens the door to interpreting these remarkable drawings. Following studies address the construction of English and French Gothic churches, the technological culture of the medieval world, and the sciences of measure and their cultural expression.
List of contents
Contents: Introduction, Marie-Thérèse Zenner; In Memoriam Jean Gimpel, 1918-96, Carl F. Barnes, Jr.; Essay: Jean Gimpel and the legacy of medieval technology, Charles Stegeman; Bibliography of Jean Gimpel; Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt, selected folios. Part I Art And Architecture: Architectural geometry and the portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt, Nigel Hiscock; Reims cathedral in the portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt, William W. Clark; Villard de Honnecourt and masons' marks, Jennifer S. Alexander; Costumes in the portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt, Janet Snyder; The oral tradition and Villard de Honnecourt, Renaud Beffeyte; The saracen's sepulchre: an interpretation of folio 6r in the portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt, Roland Bechmann; Rock, spires, paper: technical aspects of gothic spire construction, Robert Bork; The use of tufa webbing and wattle centering in English vaults down to 1340, Malcolm Thurlby. Part II Science And Technology: The medieval horse harness: revolution or evolution? A case study in technological change, Paul J. Gans; Technological innovation and control at the medieval Venetian mint, Alan M. Stahl; Astronomy, time, and churches in the early middle ages, Stephen C. McCluskey; The art of radically coherent geometry, Robert D. Stevick; Euclidean geometry in the early middle ages: a preliminary reassessment, Wesley M. Stevens; Diagram and thought in medieval science, John North; Index.
About the author
Marie-Thérèse Zenner
Summary
Villard's Legacy is in memory of the celebrated iconoclastic historian, Jean Gimpel, and represents a fundamental contribution to the new AVISTA series with Ashgate Publishing.
Additional text
'... the excellent essays in this volume...' Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
