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21 Coade, Eleanor
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building[br]b. 24 June 1733 Exeter, Devon, Englandd. 18 November 1821 Camberwell, London, England[br]English proprietor of the Coade Factory, making artificial stone.[br]Born Elinor Coade, she never married but adopted, as was customary in business in the eighteenth century, the courtesy title of Mrs. Following the bankruptcy and death of her father, George Coade, in Exeter, Eleanor and her mother (also called Eleanor) moved to London and founded the works at Lambeth, South London, in 1769 that later became famous as the Coade factory. The factory was located at King's Arms Stairs, Narrow Wall. During the eighteenth century, several attempts had been made in other businesses to manufacture a durable, malleable artificial stone that would be acceptable to architects for decorative use. These substances were not very successful, but Coade stone was different. Although stories are legion about the secret formula supposedly used in this artificial stone, modern methods have established the exact formula.Coade stone was a stoneware ceramic material fired in a kiln. The body was remarkable in that it shrank only 8 per cent in drying and firing: this was achieved by using a combination of china clay, sand, crushed glass and grog (i.e. crushed and ground, previously fired stoneware). The Coade formula thus included a considerable proportion of material that, having been fired once already, was unshrinkable. Mrs Coade's name for the firm, Coade's Lithodipyra Terra-Cotta or Artificial Stone Manufactory (where "Lithodipyra" is a term derived from three Greek words meaning "stone", "twice" and "fire"), made reference to the custom of including such material (such as in Josiah Wedgwood's basalt and jasper ware). The especially low rate of shrinkage rendered the material ideal for making extra-life-size statuary, and large architectural, decorative features to be incorporated into stone buildings.Coade stone was widely used for such purposes by leading architects in Britain and Ireland from the 1770s until the 1830s, including Robert Adam, Sir Charles Barry, Sir William Chambers, Sir John Soane, John Nash and James Wyatt. Some architects introduced the material abroad, as far as, for example, Charles Bulfinch's United States Bank in Boston, Massachusetts, and Charles Cameron's redecoration for the Empress Catherine of the great palace Tsarkoe Selo (now Pushkin), near St Petersburg. The material so resembles stone that it is often mistaken for it, but it is so hard and resistant to weather that it retains sharpness of detail much longer than the natural substance. The many famous British buildings where Coade stone was used include the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, Carlton House and the Sir John Soane Museum (all of which are located in London), St George's Chapel at Windsor, Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, and Culzean Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland.Apart from the qualities of the material, the Coade firm established a high reputation for the equally fine quality of its classical statuary. Mrs Coade employed excellent craftsmen such as the sculptor John Bacon (1740–99), whose work was mass-produced by the use of moulds. One famous example which was widely reproduced was the female caryatid from the south porch of the Erechtheion on the acropolis of Athens. A drawing of this had appeared in the second edition of Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Athens in 1789, and many copies were made from the original Coade model; Soane used them more than once, for example on the Bank of England and his own houses in London.Eleanor Coade was a remarkable woman, and was important and influential on the neo-classical scene. She had close and amicable relations with leading architects of the day, notably Robert Adam and James Wyatt. The Coade factory was enlarged and altered over the years, but the site was finally cleared during 1949–50 in preparation for the establishment of the 1951 Festival of Britain.[br]Further ReadingA.Kelly, 1990, Mrs Coade's Stone, pub. in conjunction with the Georgian Group (an interesting, carefully written history; includes a detailed appendix on architects who used Coade stone and buildings where surviving work may be seen).DY -
22 Strutt, Jedediah
SUBJECT AREA: Textiles[br]b. 26 July 1726 South Normanton, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, Englandd. 7 May 1797 Derby, England[br]English inventor of a machine for making ribbed knitting.[br]Jedediah Strutt was the second of three sons of William, a small farmer and maltster at South Normanton, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, where the only industry was a little framework knitting. At the age of 14 Jedediah was apprenticed to Ralph Massey, a wheelwright near Derby, and lodged with the Woollats, whose daughter Elizabeth he later married in 1755. He moved to Leicester and in 1754 started farming at Blackwell, where an uncle had died and left him the stock on his farm. It was here that he made his knitting invention.William Lee's knitting machine remained in virtually the same form as he left it until the middle of the eighteenth century. The knitting industry moved away from London into the Midlands and in 1730 a Nottingham workman, using Indian spun yarn, produced the first pair of cotton hose ever made by mechanical means. This industry developed quickly and by 1750 was providing employment for 1,200 frameworkers using both wool and cotton in the Nottingham and Derby areas. It was against this background that Jedediah Strutt obtained patents for his Derby rib machine in 1758 and 1759.The machine was a highly ingenious mechanism, which when placed in front of an ordinary stocking frame enabled the fashionable ribbed stockings to be made by machine instead of by hand. To develop this invention, he formed a partnership first with his brother-in-law, William Woollat, and two leading Derby hosiers, John Bloodworth and Thomas Stamford. This partnership was dissolved in 1762 and another was formed with Woollat and the Nottingham hosier Samuel Need. Strutt's invention was followed by a succession of innovations which enabled framework knitters to produce almost every kind of mesh on their machines. In 1764 the stocking frame was adapted to the making of eyelet holes, and this later lead to the production of lace. In 1767 velvet was made on these frames, and two years later brocade. In this way Strutt's original invention opened up a new era for knitting. Although all these later improvements were not his, he was able to make a fortune from his invention. In 1762 he was made a freeman of Nottingham, but by then he was living in Derby. His business at Derby was concerned mainly with silk hose and he had a silk mill there.It was partly his need for cotton yarn and partly his wealth which led him into partnership with Richard Arkwright, John Smalley and David Thornley to exploit Arkwright's patent for spinning cotton by rollers. Together with Samuel Need, they financed the Arkwright partnership in 1770 to develop the horse-powered mill in Nottingham and then the water-powered mill at Cromford. Strutt gave advice to Arkwright about improving the machinery and helped to hold the partnership together when Arkwright fell out with his first partners. Strutt was also involved, in London, where he had a house, with the parliamentary proceedings over the passing of the Calico Act in 1774, which opened up the trade in British-manufactured all-cotton cloth.In 1776 Strutt financed the construction of his own mill at Helper, about seven miles (11 km) further down the Derwent valley below Cromford. This was followed by another at Milford, a little lower on the river. Strutt was also a partner with Arkwright and others in the mill at Birkacre, near Chorley in Lancashire. The Strutt mills were developed into large complexes for cotton spinning and many experiments were later carried out in them, both in textile machinery and in fireproof construction for the mills themselves. They were also important training schools for engineers.Elizabeth Strutt died in 1774 and Jedediah never married again. The family seem to have lived frugally in spite of their wealth, probably influenced by their Nonconformist background. He had built a house near the mills at Milford, but it was in his Derby house that Jedediah died in 1797. By the time of his death, his son William had long been involved with the business and became a more important cotton spinner than Jedediah.[br]Bibliography1758. British patent no. 722 (Derby rib machine). 1759. British patent no. 734 (Derby rib machine).Further ReadingFor the involvement of Strutt in Arkwright's spinning ventures, there are two books, the earlier of which is R.S.Fitton and A.P.Wadsworth, 1958, The Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758–1830, Manchester, which has most of the details about Strutt's life. This has been followed by R.S.Fitton, 1989, The Arkwrights, Spinners of Fortune, Manchester.R.L.Hills, 1970, Power in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester (for a general background to the textile industry of the period).W.Felkin, 1967, History of the Machine-wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufactures, reprint, Newton Abbot (orig. pub. 1867) (covers Strutt's knitting inventions).RLH -
23 Chippendale, Thomas
SUBJECT AREA: Domestic appliances and interiors[br]baptized 5 June 1718 Otley, Yorkshire, Englandd. 13 November 1779 London, England[br]English cabinet-maker who published the first comprehensive book of furniture.[br]Thomas Chippendale was the son of a carpenter. The business that he set up in London was so well established by 1753 that he was able to move to larger premises—a workshop, timberyard and shop—in the furniture-making centre of London, at 60–62 St Martin's Lane. In 1754 he published his folio work The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, which contained illustrations of every conceivable type of furniture. No previously published book was as comprehensive. The Director, as it came to be called, made Chippendale famous and he became the best known of all such English craftsmen and designers. Further editions of the book followed in 1755 and 1762.Stylistically most of the furniture designs in the Director followed the contemporary rococo fashion, but a number followed other popular themes such as the so-called "literary Gothic" and chinoiserie. Indeed, the Chinese versions became so well known that such furniture became known as "Chinese Chippendale". Chippendale's later work was more neo-classical, much of it produced at the request of Robert Adam for the many great houses whose interiors he was re-designing in the 1760s and 1770s.From a technical viewpoint, Chippendale's furniture was made from a variety of woods and incorporated diverse decoration. Mahogany was the fashionable wood of the age, particularly during the middle years of the eighteenth century, and lent itself especially to the fine and elaborate carving that characterized Chippendale's intricate chair and settee backs. By the later 1760s other woods were also often in use, sometimes gilded and turned, sometimes inlaid with materials such as ivory or ceramic plaques and fine ormolu mounts. Later still, painted designs were applied to panel surfaces. Alternatively, a delicate form of marquetry had been fashionably revived.[br]Further ReadingC.Gilbert, 1972, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale: Studio Vista.1986, Dictionary of English Furniture-Makers, The Furniture History Society and W.F. Maney.DY -
24 Curr, John
[br]b. 1756 Kyo, near Lanchester, or in Greenside, near Ryton-on-Tyne, Durham, Englandd. 27 January 1823 Sheffield, England[br]English coal-mine manager and engineer, inventor of flanged, cast-iron plate rails.[br]The son of a "coal viewer", Curr was brought up in the West Durham colliery district. In 1777 he went to the Duke of Norfolk's collieries at Sheffield, where in 1880 he was appointed Superintendent. There coal was conveyed underground in baskets on sledges: Curr replaced the wicker sledges with wheeled corves, i.e. small four-wheeled wooden wagons, running on "rail-roads" with cast-iron rails and hauled from the coal-face to the shaft bottom by horses. The rails employed hitherto had usually consisted of plates of iron, the flange being on the wheels of the wagon. Curr's new design involved flanges on the rails which guided the vehicles, the wheels of which were unflanged and could run on any hard surface. He appears to have left no precise record of the date that he did this, and surviving records have been interpreted as implying various dates between 1776 and 1787. In 1787 John Buddle paid tribute to the efficiency of the rails of Curr's type, which were first used for surface transport by Joseph Butler in 1788 at his iron furnace at Wingerworth near Chesterfield: their use was then promoted widely by Benjamin Outram, and they were adopted in many other English mines. They proved serviceable until the advent of locomotives demanded different rails.In 1788 Curr also developed a system for drawing a full corve up a mine shaft while lowering an empty one, with guides to separate them. At the surface the corves were automatically emptied by tipplers. Four years later he was awarded a patent for using double ropes for lifting heavier loads. As the weight of the rope itself became a considerable problem with the increasing depth of the shafts, Curr invented the flat hemp rope, patented in 1798, which consisted of several small round ropes stitched together and lapped upon itself in winding. It acted as a counterbalance and led to a reduction in the time and cost of hoisting: at the beginning of a run the loaded rope began to coil upon a small diameter, gradually increasing, while the unloaded rope began to coil off a large diameter, gradually decreasing.Curr's book The Coal Viewer (1797) is the earliest-known engineering work on railway track and it also contains the most elaborate description of a Newcomen pumping engine, at the highest state of its development. He became an acknowledged expert on construction of Newcomen-type atmospheric engines, and in 1792 he established a foundry to make parts for railways and engines.Because of the poor financial results of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries at the end of the century, Curr was dismissed in 1801 despite numerous inventions and improvements which he had introduced. After his dismissal, six more of his patents were concerned with rope-making: the one he gained in 1813 referred to the application of flat ropes to horse-gins and perpendicular drum-shafts of steam engines. Curr also introduced the use of inclined planes, where a descending train of full corves pulled up an empty one, and he was one of the pioneers employing fixed steam engines for hauling. He may have resided in France for some time before his death.[br]Bibliography1788. British patent no. 1,660 (guides in mine shafts).1789. An Account of tin Improved Method of Drawing Coals and Extracting Ores, etc., from Mines, Newcastle upon Tyne.1797. The Coal Viewer and Engine Builder's Practical Companion; reprinted with five plates and an introduction by Charles E.Lee, 1970, London: Frank Cass, and New York: Augustus M.Kelley.1798. British patent no. 2,270 (flat hemp ropes).Further ReadingF.Bland, 1930–1, "John Curr, originator of iron tram roads", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 11:121–30.R.A.Mott, 1969, Tramroads of the eighteenth century and their originator: John Curr', Transactions of the Newcomen Society 42:1–23 (includes corrections to Fred Bland's earlier paper).Charles E.Lee, 1970, introduction to John Curr, The Coal Viewer and Engine Builder's Practical Companion, London: Frank Cass, pp. 1–4; orig. pub. 1797, Sheffield (contains the most comprehensive biographical information).R.Galloway, 1898, Annals of Coalmining, Vol. I, London; reprinted 1971, London (provides a detailed account of Curr's technological alterations).WK / PJGR -
25 Saulnier, Raymond
SUBJECT AREA: Aerospace[br]b. late eighteenth century Franced. mid-twentieth century[br]French designer of aircraft, associated with Louis Blériot and later the Morane- Saulnier company.[br]When Louis Blériot made his historic flight across the English Channel in 1909, the credit for the success of the flight naturally went to the pilot. Few people thought about the designer of the successful aeroplane, and those who did assumed it was Blériot himself. Blériot did design several of the aeroplanes bearing his name, but the cross- Channel No. XI was mainly designed by his friend Raymond Saulnier, a fact not; broadcast at the time.In 1911 the Morane-Saulnier company was founded in Paris by Léon (1885–1918) and Robert (1886–1968) Morane and Raymond Saulnier, who became Chief Designer. Flying a Morane-Saulnier, Roland Garros made a recordbreaking flight to a height of 5,611 m (18,405 ft) in 1912, and the following year he made the first non-stop flight across the Mediterranean. Morane-Saulnier built a series of "parasol" monoplanes which were very widely used during the early years of the First World War. With the wing placed above the fuselage, the pilot had an excellent downward view for observation purposes, but the propeller ruled out a forward-firing machine gun. During 1913–4, Raymond Saulnier was working on an idea for a synchronized machine gun to fire between the blades of the propeller. He could not overcome certain technical problems, so he devised a simple alternative: metal deflector plates were fitted to the propeller, so if a bullet hit the blade it did no harm. Roland Garros, flying a Type L Parasol, tested the device in action during April 1915 and was immediately successful. This opened the era of the true fighter aircraft. Unfortunately, Garros was shot down and the Germans discovered his secret weapon: they improved on the idea with a fully synchronized machine gun fitted to the Fokker E 1 monoplane. The Morane-Saulnier company continued in business until 1963, when it was taken over by the Potez Group.[br]Further ReadingJane's Fighting Aircraft of World War I, 1990, London: Jane's (reprint) (provides plans and details of 1914–18 Morane-Saulnier aeroplanes).JDS -
26 Outram, Benjamin
[br]b. 1 April 1764 Alfreton, Englandd. 22 May 1805 London, England[br]English ironmaster and engineer of canals and tramroads, protagonist of angled plate rails in place of edge rails.[br]Outram's father was one of the principal promoters of the Cromford Canal, Derbyshire, and Benjamin Outram became Assistant to the canal's Engineer, William Jessop. In 1789 Outram was appointed Superintendent in charge of construction, and his responsibilities included the 2,978 yd (2,723 m) Butterley Tunnel; while the tunnel was being driven, coal and iron ore were encountered. Outram and a partner purchased the Butterley Hall estate above the tunnel and formed Outram \& Co. to exploit the coal and iron: a wide length of the tunnel beneath the company's furnace was linked to the surface by shafts to become in effect an underground wharf. Jessop soon joined the company, which grew and prospered to eventually become the long-lived Butterley Company.As a canal engineer, Outram's subsequent projects included the Derby, Huddersfield Narrow and Peak Forest Canals. On the Derby Canal he built a small iron aqueduct, which though designed later than the Longdon Aqueduct of Thomas Telford was opened earlier, in 1796, to become the first iron aqueduct.It is as a tramroad engineer that Outram is best known. In 1793 he completed a mile-long (1.6 km) tramroad from Outram \& Co.'s limestone quarry at Crich to the Cromford Canal, for which he used plate rails of the type recently developed by John Curr. He was, however, able to use a wider gauge—3 ft 6 in. (1.07 m) between the flanges—and larger wagons than Curr had been able to use underground in mines. It appears to have been Outram's idea to mount the rails on stone blocks, rather than wooden sleepers.Outram then engineered tramroads to extend the lines of the Derby and Peak Forest Canals. He encouraged construction of such tramroads in many parts of Britain, often as feeders of traffic to canals. He acted as Engineer, and his company often provided the rails and sometimes undertook the entire construction of a line. Foreseeing that lines would be linked together, he recommended a gauge of 4 ft 2 in. (1.27 m) between the flanges as standard, and for twenty years or so Outram's plateways, with horses or gravity as motive power, became the usual form of construction for new railways. However, experience then showed that edge rails, weight for weight, could carry greater load, and were indeed almost essential for the introduction of steam locomotives.[br]Further ReadingR.B.Schofield, 1986, "The design and construction of the Cromford Canal, 1788–1794", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 57 (provides good coverage of Outram's early career).P.J.Riden, 1973, The Butterley Company and railway construction, 1790–1830', Transport History 6(1) (covers Outram's development of tramroads).R.A.Mott, 1969, Tramroads of the eighteenth century and their originator: John Curr', Transactions of the Newcomen Society 42."Dowie" (A.R.Cowlishaw, J.H.Price and R.G.P. Tebb), 1971, The Crich Mineral Railways, Crich: Tramway Publications.PJGR -
27 Li Jie (Li Chieh)
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building[br]fl. 1085–1110 China[br]Chinese architect who revised the Chinese treatise on architectural method, Ying Zao Fa Shi.[br]He was a first-rate architect and from 1092 was an assistant in the Directorate of Buildings and Construction. He must have shown promise as an architect for he was commissioned to revise the old manuals of architecture. The work was completed in 1100 and printed three years later as the treatise for which he is best known, the Ying Zao Fa Shi (Treatise on Architectural Method). This work has been called the greatest and definitive treatise of any age in the millennial tradition of Chinese architecture. The work is noted for the comprehensive range of constructions covered and the thoroughness of its instruction to architects. The detailed instructions for the construction and shaping of woodwork are not found in European literature until the eighteenth century. The illustrations are fine and the excellence of the constructional drawings makes them the earliest working drawings. He was a distinguished practising builder, as well as a writer, for he erected administrative offices, palace apartments, gates and gate towers, together with the ancestral temples of the Sung dynasty as well as Buddhist temples.[br]Further ReadingJ.Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, Vols IV. 2, pp. 49, 549, 551; 1971, IV. 3, pp. 84–5, 107.LRD -
28 Yi-Xing (I-Hsing)
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. c. 672/683 Chinad. 727 China[br]Chinese astronomer and mathematician.[br]A Tantric Buddhist monk, Yi-Xing was one of the greatest astronomers and mathematicians in Chinese history. He was much influenced by Indian and therefore Hellenic astronomy. Around 725, he constructed armillary spheres with ecliptically mounted sighting tubes for taking measurements in ecliptic co-ordinates. With these instruments he took many readings of star positions and may even have discovered the proper motion of the stars. Yi-Xing's Da Yan Li Shu calendar was the result of an imperial commission to reform the calendar. It was edited the year after his death, in 728, and was officially adopted the following year. This calendar gave a nearly correct value for the irregularity of the movement of the Sun and came closer than previous attempts to calculate the day of true syzygy. Yi-Xing's method of interpolation was identical to that used by Gauss in the eighteenth century. He was also the inventor of the "water wheel link work escapement" mechanism as used later in the clock of Su Song.[br]Further ReadingJ.Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959–65, vols III, pp. 37–8; IV.2, pp. 471ff., 532–3.——1960, Heavenly Clockwork, pp. 17–8, 20–1, 23–5, 62, 72, 74ff., 85, 89, 94, 98, 104–5, 107, 112, 122–3, 132, 139, 151, 153, 154, 166, 175, 177, 180, 182, 187.LRD -
29 gaucho
adj.1 Argentinean.2 gaucho.m.gaucho, cowboy of the pampas.* * *1. SM1) LAm gaucho; (=vaquero) cowboy, herdsman, herder (EEUU)2) Cono Sur (=jinete) good rider, expert horseman3) And (=sombrero) wide-brimmed straw hat2. ADJ1) gaucho antes de s, gaucho-like2) Cono Sur * (=servicial) helpfulGAUCHO Gaucho is the name given to the men who rode the Pampa, the plains of Argentina, Uruguay and parts of southern Brazil, earning their living on cattle farms. Important parts of the gaucho's traditional costume include the faja, a sash worn around the waist, the facón, a sheath knife, and boleadoras, strips of leather weighted with stones at either end which were used somewhat like lassos to catch cattle. During the 19th century this vast pampas area was divided up into large ranches and the free-roaming lifestyle of the gaucho gradually disappeared. Gauchos were the inspiration for a tradition of literatura gauchesca, of which the most famous work is the two-part epic poem "Martín Fierro" written by the Argentine José Hernández between 1872 and 1879 and mourning the loss of the gaucho way of life and their persecution as outlaws.* * *masculino gaucho•• Cultural note:A peasant of the pampas of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Modern gauchos work as foremen on farms and ranches and take part in rodeos. Gauchos fought for Argentine independence from Spain, but later became involved in political disputes and suffered persecution. A literary genre, literatura gauchesca, grew up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most famous work is Martín Fierro, an epic poem by José Hernández about the misfortunes of an Argentine gaucho when the huge pampas are divided into ranches. Traditionally gauchos wore baggy trousers, leather chaps, a chiripá, a garment that went over their trousers and came up around their waist, boots, a hat, a leather waistcoat, a belt with a large buckle. They carried a facón - a large knife with a curved blade, and used boleadoras, ropes weighted at each end and thrown like lassos, to catch cattle* * *masculino gaucho•• Cultural note:A peasant of the pampas of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Modern gauchos work as foremen on farms and ranches and take part in rodeos. Gauchos fought for Argentine independence from Spain, but later became involved in political disputes and suffered persecution. A literary genre, literatura gauchesca, grew up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most famous work is Martín Fierro, an epic poem by José Hernández about the misfortunes of an Argentine gaucho when the huge pampas are divided into ranches. Traditionally gauchos wore baggy trousers, leather chaps, a chiripá, a garment that went over their trousers and came up around their waist, boots, a hat, a leather waistcoat, a belt with a large buckle. They carried a facón - a large knife with a curved blade, and used boleadoras, ropes weighted at each end and thrown like lassos, to catch cattle* * *2 ( Chi) (argentino) Argentiniangaucho (↑ gaucho a1)gaucho ( South American cowboy)A peasant of the pampas of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Modern gauchos work as foremen on farms and ranches and take part in rodeos.Gauchos fought for Argentine independence from Spain, but later became involved in political disputes and suffered persecution.A literary genre, literatura gauchesca, grew up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most famous work is Martín Fierro, an epic poem by José Hernández about the misfortunes of an Argentine gaucho when the huge pampas are divided into ranches.Traditionally gauchos wore baggy trousers, leather chaps, a chiripá, a garment that went over their trousers and came up around their waist, boots, a hat, a leather waistcoat, a belt with a large buckle. They carried a facón - a large knife with a curved blade, and used boleadoras, ropes weighted at each end and thrown like lassos, to catch cattle.* * *
gaucho sustantivo masculino
gaucho
' gaucho' also found in these entries:
Spanish:
bombacha
- matrero
* * *gaucho, -a♦ adjRP Fam [servicial] helpful, obliging♦ nm,fgauchoGAUCHOThe Gauchos were the cowboys of Argentina and Uruguay, skilled horsemen who were in charge of the huge cattle-herds of the pampas. The culture of the Gaucho, which dates from colonial times, combines elements from several sources: Spain, indigenous Indian culture, and that of freed slaves. They gained fame for their courage and daring during the wars of independence against Spain, but they later became increasingly marginalized because of their fiercely independent spirit and nomadic customs. Nevertheless they remain vivid figures in the national imagination, together with their working tools and weapons – the Spanish hunting knife and Indian “boleadoras” – their distinctive clothing, such as the poncho, and customs, such as drinking mate and singing campfire songs. They were immortalized by José Hernández in his long poem “El gaucho Martín Fierro” (1872-79), which is Argentina's national epic and did much to create and popularize their legend. Although this tradition may be affectionately sent up nowadays (e.g. in the comic strip “Inodoro Pereyra” by the cartoonist Fontanarrosa), the Gaucho is still regarded by many as the embodiment of the virtues of solidarity and companionship.* * *RplI adj gaucho atrII m gaucho* * *gaucho nm: gaucho -
30 Leonardo da Vinci
[br]b. 15 April 1452 Vinci, near Florence, Italy,d. 2 May 1519 St Cloux, near Amboise, France.[br]Italian scientist, engineer, inventor and artist.[br]Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a Florentine lawyer. His first sixteen years were spent with the lawyer's family in the rural surroundings of Vinci, which aroused in him a lifelong love of nature and an insatiable curiosity in it. He received little formal education but extended his knowledge through private reading. That gave him only a smattering of Latin, a deficiency that was to be a hindrance throughout his active life. At sixteen he was apprenticed in the studio of Andrea del Verrochio in Florence, where he received a training not only in art but in a wide variety of crafts and technical arts.In 1482 Leonardo went to Milan, where he sought and obtained employment with Ludovico Sforza, later Duke of Milan, partly to sculpt a massive equestrian statue of Ludovico but the work never progressed beyond the full-scale model stage. He did, however, complete the painting which became known as the Virgin of the Rocks and in 1497 his greatest artistic achievement, The Last Supper, commissioned jointly by Ludovico and the friars of Santa Maria della Grazie and painted on the wall of the monastery's refectory. Leonardo was responsible for the court pageants and also devised a system of irrigation to supply water to the plains of Lombardy. In 1499 the French army entered Milan and deposed Leonardo's employer. Leonardo departed and, after a brief visit to Mantua, returned to Florence, where for a time he was employed as architect and engineer to Cesare Borgia, Duke of Romagna. Around 1504 he completed another celebrated work, the Mona Lisa.In 1506 Leonardo began his second sojourn in Milan, this time in the service of King Louis XII of France, who appointed him "painter and engineer". In 1513 Leonardo left for Rome in the company of his pupil Francesco Melzi, but his time there was unproductive and he found himself out of touch with the younger artists active there, Michelangelo above all. In 1516 he accepted with relief an invitation from King François I of France to reside at the small château of St Cloux in the royal domain of Amboise. With the pension granted by François, Leonardo lived out his remaining years in tranquility at St Cloux.Leonardo's career can hardly be regarded as a success or worthy of such a towering genius. For centuries he was known only for the handful of artistic works that he managed to complete and have survived more or less intact. His main activity remained hidden until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, during which the contents of his notebooks were gradually revealed. It became evident that Leonardo was one of the greatest scientific investigators and inventors in the history of civilization. Throughout his working life he extended a searching curiosity over an extraordinarily wide range of subjects. The notes show careful investigation of questions of mechanical and civil engineering, such as power transmission by means of pulleys and also a form of chain belting. The notebooks record many devices, such as machines for grinding and polishing lenses, a lathe operated by treadle-crank, a rolling mill with conical rollers and a spinning machine with pinion and yard divider. Leonardo made an exhaustive study of the flight of birds, with a view to designing a flying machine, which obsessed him for many years.Leonardo recorded his observations and conclusions, together with many ingenious inventions, on thousands of pages of manuscript notes, sketches and drawings. There are occasional indications that he had in mind the publication of portions of the notes in a coherent form, but he never diverted his energy into putting them in order; instead, he went on making notes. As a result, Leonardo's impact on the development of science and technology was virtually nil. Even if his notebooks had been copied and circulated, there were daunting impediments to their understanding. Leonardo was left-handed and wrote in mirror-writing: that is, in reverse from right to left. He also used his own abbreviations and no punctuation.At his death Leonardo bequeathed his entire output of notes to his friend and companion Francesco Melzi, who kept them safe until his own death in 1570. Melzi left the collection in turn to his son Orazio, whose lack of interest in the arts and sciences resulted in a sad period of dispersal which endangered their survival, but in 1636 the bulk of them, in thirteen volumes, were assembled and donated to the Ambrosian Library in Milan. These include a large volume of notes and drawings compiled from the various portions of the notebooks and is now known as the Codex Atlanticus. There they stayed, forgotten and ignored, until 1796, when Napoleon's marauding army overran Italy and art and literary works, including the thirteen volumes of Leonardo's notebooks, were pillaged and taken to Paris. After the war in 1815, the French government agreed to return them but only the Codex Atlanticus found its way back to Milan; the rest remained in Paris. The appendix to one notebook, dealing with the flight of birds, was later regarded as of sufficient importance to stand on its own. Four small collections reached Britain at various times during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; of these, the volume in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle is notable for its magnificent series of anatomical drawings. Other collections include the Codex Leicester and Codex Arundel in the British Museum in London, and the Madrid Codices in Spain.Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Leonardo's true stature as scientist, engineer and inventor began to emerge, particularly with the publication of transcriptions and translations of his notebooks. The volumes in Paris appeared in 1881–97 and the Codex Atlanticus was published in Milan between 1894 and 1904.[br]Principal Honours and Distinctions"Premier peintre, architecte et mécanicien du Roi" to King François I of France, 1516.Further ReadingE.MacCurdy, 1939, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 2 vols, London; 2nd edn, 1956, London (the most extensive selection of the notes, with an English translation).G.Vasari (trans. G.Bull), 1965, Lives of the Artists, London: Penguin, pp. 255–271.C.Gibbs-Smith, 1978, The Inventions of Leonardo da Vinci, Oxford: Phaidon. L.H.Heydenreich, Dibner and L. Reti, 1981, Leonardo the Inventor, London: Hutchinson.I.B.Hart, 1961, The World of Leonardo da Vinci, London: Macdonald.LRD / IMcN -
31 Wedgwood, Ralph
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]fl. late eighteenth/early nineteenth century London, England[br]English inventor of carbon paper.[br]Wedgwood was descended from Thomas Wedgwood, the father of Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of the famous pottery firm. In 1806, he patented an apparatus for making copies of handwritten documents, Wedgwood's Stylographic Writer. It was originally developed with the intention of helping the blind to write and had a metal stylus instead of a quill pen: a piece of paper that had been soaked in printer's ink and then dried was placed between two sheets of paper, and wires placed across the page guided the stylus in the hand of the blind writer.A few years later Wedgwood developed this apparatus into a way of making a copy of a letter at the time of writing. He used impregnated paper, which he called carbonic or carbonated paper, the first known reference to carbon paper. It was placed between a sheet of good quality writing paper and one of thin, transparent paper. By writing with the stylus on the thin paper, a good copy appeared on the lower sheet, while a reverse copy appeared on the underside of the other, which could be read right way round through the transparent paper. In its final form, the Manifold Stylographic Writer was put on sale, elegantly presented between marbled covers. Eventually a company was established to make and sell the writer, and by 1818 it was in the name of Wedgwood's son, R.Wedgwood Jun. of Rathbone Place, Oxford Street, London. Many of the writers were sold, although they never came into general use in offices, which preferred battalions of Dickensian Bob Cratchits armed with quill pens. Wedgwood himself did not share in the family prosperity, for his pathetic letters to his daughter show that he had to hawk his apparatus to raise the price of his next meal.[br]Further ReadingW.B.Proudfoot, 1972, The Origin of Stencil Duplicating, London: Hutchinson.LRD
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