Raymond Carlson and Jordan Katz
Making and Knowing Project
Annotation for BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fols. 129r; 155r; 155v:
“Molded Roses;” “Molding a Rose;” “Roses”
BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 129r
Transcription [tc_p129r, 12 February 2015]
<title id=”p129r_a4”>Roses moulees</title>
<ab id=”p129r_b4”>Elles sont malaisees a mouler a cause que les feuilles sont fort subtiles et foibles et doubles mays pour obvier a cela il les fault oindre dhuile de froment qui est fort dessicatif et estant bien tost sec il affirmist et roidise les feuilles pour les pouvoir distinguer et soustenir le sable destrempe le mesme se fait auc mouches aux pensces et semblables choses delicates aux fleurs de capries</ab>
Translation [tl_p129r, 12 February 2015] with proposed changes underlined
<title id=”p129r_a4”>
Molded roses </title>
<ab id=”p129r_b4”>
Roses are molded with difficulty because of their petals1 which are very delicate, weak, and doubled. To obviate these disadvantages rub it with wheat oil which is very desiccative, once dried the oil stiffens the leafs which will withstand soaked sand. Do the same thing with flies, pansies, and other delicate things like capers </ab>
BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 155r
Transcription [tc_p155r, 12 February 2015]
<title id=”p155r_a1”>Mouler une rose</title>
<ab id=”p155r_b1”>Pourceque les branchetes du rosier qui sont aupart aultour de<lb/>
la fleur sont quelques fois fort dilatees & feroient<lb/>
un trop grand moule On les faict et moule a part Et la rose<lb/>
& quelquees boutons a part Et puys on raporte<lb/>
avecq souldure les branchettes & foeuilles de rosier a la<lb/>
queue de la rose a laquelle on laisse expressem{ent} de<lb/>
petits bouts des branchettes Mect la foeuille ou rose<lb/>
le plus bas que tu pourras dans le moule pourceque le sable<lb/>
la releve tousjours Tu en peulx aussy mouler plusieurs<lb/>
foeuilles ensemble estant disposees lune sur laultre les<lb/>
distingant avecq les filets co{mm}e dict est Et pour le regard<lb/>
de la rose tu peulx donner une legere couche de beurre fondu<lb/>
au dos de la foeuille de aulx premieres foeilles de dehors non a celles de dedans be pour laffermir & luy donner force de<lb/>
soubstenir affin que le sable destrempe ne les dilate & escarte plus quil ne fault Tu les peulx bien mouler aussy les foeuilles<lb/>
des rosiers fraisiers & semblables qui sont plates<lb/>
& qui se peuvent aplatir sans les gaster a deulx gects<lb/>
pour ouvrir ton moule quand il est recuit & le nettoyer<lb/>
de la cendre Toute et faire des souspirails &<lb/>
plusieurs gects Et ceste voye est la plus facille<lb/>
Mays laultre se peult faire aussy Et avecq de petits<lb/>
filons de cire adaptes & joincts de foeuille a foeuillle<lb/>
tu peulx fayre des gects Mesmes tu peulx faire<lb/>
despuys le dos de la premiere foeuille jusques un filon de cire<lb/>
qui se raportera au gect Tout cela facilite le gect<lb/>
Aulcu Le principal est de laisser bien froidir les<lb/>
moules recuits plustost que les nettoyer & soufler dedans<lb/>
pour faire sortir la cire pourceque quand le moule est<lb/>
chault la cendre se tient co{mm}e attachee Mays quand il<lb/>
est froid elle sesperd et sort avecq le vent ou quand<lb/>
on retire lalheine a soy par le petit pertuis</ab>
Translation [tl_p155r, 12 February 2015] with proposed changes underlined
<title id=”p155r_a1”>Moulding a rose</title>
<ab id=”p155r_b1”>Because of the little branches of the rose bush, which are around the flower, are sometimes very spread out, they would demand too big of a mold. We make and cast them separately, the rose and the rosebuds separately as well. And then one brings them together, soldering the little branches and leaves of the rose bush to the stem of the rose, on which you will have purposefully left bits of the small branches. Put your petal or rose as low as you can in your mould, because sand will always bring it up or raise it. You can also mould several petals together, arranged one on top of the other, separating them some thread. And for the look of the rose you can give a thin layer of melted butter on the back of the petals, but only on the outside petals, not the inside petals, to stiffen them and give them the strength to withstand, so that the wet sand does not stretch or spread them out more than necessary. You can also mold well the leaves of a rosebush, strawberry plant and similar things that are flat and can be flattened without being spoiled. For two castings, to open your mould, when it has been reheated and then clean the ashes out, make some vents, and [you will be able to do] several casts. This is the easiest way and you can also do the other. And with little vents of wax that has been adapted and joined from leaf to leaf,2 you can make casts. You can even make a little vent of wax from the back of the first petal, which will join up with the main cast. All of this will facilitate the casting process. The main thing is to let your reheated moulds cool down rather than cleaning them and blowing inside them to make the wax come out, because when the mold is hot, the ash almost attaches itself to it. But when it is cold it, it detaches and leaves with air draft or when one draw in one’s breath through the small opening.
<note id=”p155r_c1a”>You can also give a little thickness at the ends of the stems that are holding up the petals, by lightly oiling them underneath with melted butter, because the petals are big and weigh heavily, and the stem made of lead or tin will not have enough strength [to hold it].</note>
<note id=”p155r_c1b”>I would be of the opinion to mold the rose on its own with a bit of its stem close to its bud, and then to join the rose to a longer one [a stem] made of glazed brass, because the rose bloom is very big and heavy.</note>
<note id=”p155r_c1c”>Moisten your rose with spirits before placing it in the clay. Do not forget to oil the wax cast. And when you have thrown in your wet sand, blow heavily, until it begins to set. The rose came out well. But because the sand was mixed within the petals, soak your work in water for a long time so that when you shake it in the water, the earth comes off.</note>
BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 155v
Transcription [tc_p155v, 12 February 2015]
<title id=”p155v_a1”>Rose</title>
<ab id=”p155v_b1”>Pource que la fleur espanouye est vague & ha ses<lb/>
foeuilles confuses & entournees en diverses facons elle<lb/>
ne se monstre poinct belle quelle ne soict paincte & daulta{n}t<lb/>
aussy quelle ha pois on fir que la queue destain qui<lb/>
est aigre & subtile ne pourroict pas susporter On moule<lb/>
la fleur de la rose seule & apart Luy faisant le gect<lb/>
grosset affin quelle vienne b mieulx Puys on couppe<lb/>
ce gect au ras de la queue du bouton dans<lb/>
lequel apres on hante & soulde une tige de fil de letton<lb/>
a laquelle aussy on soulde les foeuilles Mays pourceque<lb/>
lestain estant ainsy tanvre est fascheux a soulder et se<lb/>
peult fondre quelque foeuille Et quaussy les fleurs<lb/>
gectees & principallement la rose ne sort pas belles sans estre<lb/>
painctes On ne prend poinct la peine de soulder Mays on le <lb/>
hante les pieces a raporter & on les colle avecq dela colle<lb/>
de poisson qui soict un peu destrempee & parfondue espesse<lb/>
Et affin quelle preigne mieulx on chaufe legerem{ent} & de lomg<lb/>
louvraige destain car estant froit la colle ne prendroit pas<lb/>
Apres que ta fleur est ainsy reparee Tu resuits les<lb/>
joinctures des choses raportees avecq de la cire esb a esbaucher<lb/>
qui est cire blanche meslee de force ceruse bien broyee ou pour mieulx<lb/>
blanc de plomb la parfondant & acommodant sur ton ouvrage<lb/>
avecq une petite poincte de fer chaulde En ceste sorte tu peux<lb/>
reparer ces petites barbes qui sont au milieu de la rose ou<lb/>
les trous de la qui pourront estre en quelque foeuille Apres<lb/>
tu paindras ta rose selon le naturel Si tu gectes ta<lb/>
rose en or ou argent tu peulx bien raporter & soulder Et<lb/>
en ces mesmes metaulx quand tu as quelque chose delicate a<lb/>
raporter co{mm}e une mouche ou semblable chose sur la fleur<lb/>
la colle de poisson y est singuliere & tient bien fort larresta{n}t<lb/>
avecques quelques petites poinctes qui servent de clou<lb/>
Les foeuilles & bouttons se peuvent mouler a deulx moules<lb/>
qui se pourront ouvrir estant recuits mays non pas plustost<lb/>
Apres lesdictes choses se raportent</ab>
Translation [tl_p155v, 12 February 2015]
<title id=”p155v_a1”>Rose</title>
<ab id=”p155v_b1”>Because the rose bloom is rather wavy, and its petals are all mixed up and arranged in various ways, it will not be beautiful if it is not painted, and you must also consider that its weight cannot supported by the tin stem which is sour and fine. One moulds the flower of the rose in a separate mould, casting it thickly so that it comes out more easily. Then one cuts the cast at the edges of the stem of the bud, in which you graft and solder a stalk of brass wire to which you also solder the leaves. But because this tin, being so thin, is hard to solder, and may melt some of the leaves and also the cast flowers; [you should consider] that cast flowers, especially roses, are not beautiful without being painted, so one does not make the effort to solder them, but [instead] one grafts the pieces that you want to join together and glues them with fish glue that has been a little moistened and melted until thick. And so that it takes better, you heat the work in tin lightly and for a long time, because if it is cold, the glue will not take. Once your flower is thusly repaired, you follow the joints of the added parts with some esbaucher wax, which is a white wax mixed with much well-ground ceruse, or even better, white lead, melting it and placing it on your work with a small warm bit of iron needle. In the same way you can repair the little filaments that are in the middle of the rose, or the holes that may appear in some of the petals. Then paint your rose realistically. If you cast your rose in gold or silver, you can also rejoin [parts] and solder its. And in those materials, when you have join something very delicate together with the flower, such as a fly or other similar things, fish glue is excellent, and holds very well, fixing it with a few little needles that act as nails. The leaves and buds can be cast in two molds that can be opened once they have been reheated, but not before. Then these things join up [with the flower].</ab>
Annotation
At least nine recipes in BnF Ms. Fr. 640 pertain specifically to the process of casting flowers and herbages.3 Among these, three recipes are devoted exclusively to the steps taken to cast a rose. This technique is closely related to contemporary practices of making “life casts” of flowers, as there are clear precedents in the artistic production of Bernard Palissy and Wenzel Jamnitzer. As this entry will show, the motives for singling out roses as an object to be molded are likely related to the literary production of sixteenth-century France.
Within BnF Ms. Fr. 640, the lengthiest recipe on the molding of roses appears on fol. 155r. The recipe calls for the different parts of the rose to be cast separately: the branches, rosebud and the stem, advice not given elsewhere in the manuscript in regard to different cast flowers (such as a marigold).4 The author notes the possibility of molding the rose petals together by separating them with thread, indicating the particular care devoted to ensuring a detailed cast of the petals without allowing them to be crushed. To help strengthen the rose, the author calls for coating the outer petals with butter. This represents a major divergence from an earlier recipe about roses on fol. 129r, “Molded Roses,” which explicitly calls for the use of wheat oil to help stiffen rose petals (“les feuilles”).5 Evidently in the course of writing the manuscript, the author discovered a problem with this technique, or simply changed his mind. In the recipe “Strengthening flowers and delicate things” on fol. 154v, the author explains that wheat oil should not be used to strengthen flowers, but rather that melted butter should coat the backs of flower petals (as in the case of roses and pansies).6 In any case, the nature of this difference may offer a clue to the temporally linear process of the manuscript’s transcription, as this example signals a clear difference in the processes used at a later point in the manuscript. The author self-corrects.
To help metal to flow between the leaves, the author notes later in the recipe on fol. 155r that one they should be connected with sprues: “Et avecq de petits filons de cire adaptés & joincts de foeuille à foeuillle, tu peulx fayre des gects.” It is difficult to know in this instance whether the word “foeuille” refers to leaves or petals, although the former would coincide well with an illustration provided by the manuscript author. A drawing in the right-hand margin of the folio illustrates the larger spruing system in place that would have connected the rose leaves to one another and to the rose buds, which are surprisingly not shown detached from the stem [Fig. 1: Rose drawing]. It may be that this illustration accounts for a marginal note further below, which states that one can mold the rosebud near a piece of its stem, which is to be connected later to a separate brass stem.
The latter half of the recipe is largely given over to the process of reusing the mold. The author references that one can reuse the mold to cast again by cleaning it out, and the author’s oblique comment, “This is the easiest way and you can also do the other,”7 may have signaled to the reader to return to the recipe on fol. 117v, “How to clean flower and herbage molds.” As flowers and other objects burned in molds could leave a charcoal residue that would obstruct the flow of liquid metal and introduce impurities, this step is clearly necessary. The virtue of the reproducibility of a flower mold is that the artisan could craft a bouquet of cast flowers. Multiple molds would allow for a variety of flowers in such arrangements, of which the rose or roses would presumably have been the hallmark.
The end-product of the recipe for rose casting on fol. 155r was clearly meant to be altered further, as other recipes in the manuscript reveal. The recipe “Rose” on fol. 155v is a clear rejoinder to that which came before it, as it implies all the ways the rose casting on fol. 155r would have been incomplete. It begins by stating that because of the waviness of the rose bloom and the various arrangements of its petals, “it will not be beautiful if it is not painted.” For emphasis, this fact is stated again later in the same recipe. While the author does not explicitly describe the process for enameling the rose here, the reader could easily have returned to fol. 116r of the manuscript, which contains the recipe “Enameling very find gold rose leaves and others.” Still, one should note that the recipe on fol. 155v speaks specifically to the making of the rose in tin — not gold. The recipe on fol. 155v also offers suggestions for how to correct imperfections in the cast (ex. “holes that may appear in some of the petals”), as well as how to glue or pin various pieces back together. Enameling may not have been the only means of further emending the cast rose. On the next folio in the manuscript, 156v, the author gives a recipe for molding a fly, which he affixes to a bouquet of sage. The proximity of this recipe to that on fol. 155r is significant, as the process of molding the delicate rose petals seems linked to the molding of the fly’s wings, which are thin, necessitate separate casting, and are later soldered back onto the body of the fly.8
Equally significant to what is contained in the rose recipes is what is left out: detailed discussion of the actual process of casting. Only in the margin of fol. 155r does the author add that the rose should be soaked in spirits to ensure a clean cast. One should understand the recipe on fol. 155r as an elaboration on a process that had been more clearly described elsewhere in the manuscript. For example, fol. 117r contains the recipe “Molding flowers and herbages,” which outlines the means by which to arrange a flower or herb in clay and actually lute the mold. The process of luting the mold, for example, is nowhere found in the recipe on 155r.
There was certainly important precedent for the life-casting of roses in sixteenth-century Europe, and surviving examples of this process can be traced to the workshops of Bernard Palissy and Wenzel Jamnitzer.9 The bouquet of flowers atop Jamnitzer’s table ornament of 1549 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) reflects one potential arrangement of such objects together in a particularly masterful art object [Fig. 2: Jamnitzer Table Ornament]. Separately cast plants of exceptional delicacy attributed to Jamnitzer also survive [Fig. 3: Jamnitzer Plants]. It seems more likely that the author of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 was aware of the production of Bernard Palissy. On fol. 1r of the manuscript, the author includes the name Bernard Palissy in a lengthy listing of individuals whose writing presumably informed his own [Fig. 4: Fol. 1r, Palissy]. He writes: “Master Bernard Palissy, inventor of rustic figurines to the king and the queen mother,” adding a cross to the right of Palissy’s name. This inscription is a nearly exact citation of the designation given to Palissy on the title page of Palissy’s book Discours admirables, de la nature des eaux et fontaines, tant naturelles qu’artificielles, des metaux, des sels et salines, des pierres, des terres, du feu et des maux (Paris, 1580) [Fig. 5: Palissy Frontispiece].10 The manuscript author therefore knew of Palissy’s text, which makes several references to the properties of roses, such as their perishability.11 One cannot know whether the manuscript author had direct knowledge of objects produced by Palissy, but the author’s recipes for roses deserve comparison to the Rustic Ewer Decorated with Roses (Musée du Louvre, Paris) attributed to Palissy or a close follower [Fig. 6: Palissy Rose Ewer].12 While it is made of faïence, the ewer uses roses cast from life; the petals have evidently been crushed in the process. There were likely other examples of live-cast roses to be found in France. As Palissy’s Discours admirables makes clear, his work extended far beyond the making of tableware to the decoration of grottos, of which there were many in the vicinity of Toulouse and which the manuscript author references once.13
The recipe on fol. 155v of the manuscript, which begins with a call to paint the rose because of the need to instill it with beauty, indicates a careful attunement to the aesthetic properties of roses. This entry contends that an awareness of the need to make such objects beautiful was likely connected to the lyric poetry produced in France in the sixteenth century, a significant proportion of which used flowers as a central motif. The poems of Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85) and Jean de la Taille (1540-1608), to name a few, gained immense popularity in France and frequently dealt specifically with flowers. Consider, for example, the following poem by Ronsard, published in 1553 with the collection Les amours:
My pet, come see, this eventide,
If that fair rose that opened wide
Its crimson robe, at dawn, unto
The sun, sees not already flown
Its crimsoned folds, and, like your own,
Its blush of morning’s tender hue.
Ah me, my pet! Alas, see what
A little time will do! In but
A trice, its beauty wilts, undone.
Stepmother nature! Wicked, she,
If such a flower — ah me! ah me! —
lasts but from morn to setting sun.
Thus, if you heed my word, my pet,
Whilst childhood blooms and blossoms yet,
Green, fresh and new is the hour:
Before it fades, pluck, pluck your youth,
Lest, all too soon, old age, forsooth,
Wither your beauty, like the flower.14
Flowers and their blossoming had long been associated with youth and beauty in lyric poetry, a metaphor especially well-explored by Francesco Petrarca in his Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta. Within the context of Ronsard’s writings, the rose takes an especially central role as a trope through which to praise his beloved’s appearance while warning her of its transience. As Ronsard expresses in the final verse of the second stanza of the ode, the rose — like physical beauty — is subject to the ravages of time and “Lasts but from morn to setting sun!” (v.12).
One must consider that the same individuals who read poetry by Ronsard were likely also the primary consumers of precious life-cast objects. In the context of the rose discussed by the manuscript author, such an object would have inspired conversation about the impermanence of life. The very goal of a life cast was to render everlasting an object whose beauty was paradoxically heightened and doomed by its impermanence. Furthermore, the poem calls to mind important questions of imitation. Ronsard’s poetry is concerned with broader models of poetic imitation in the Renaissance, which has been explored in depth by scholars including Thomas Greene and, more recently, JoAnn DellaNeva.15 Greene identifies a certain randomness to the borrowings within Ronsard’s poetry, discussing sources ranging from Petrarca to Hesiod. DellaNeva, by comparison, explores an even more wide-ranging set of Italian poetic sources that informed Ronsard’s verse. What is important to stress is that one’s capacity to imitate and adhere closely to Petrarchan formulae was highly prized in sixteenth-century lyric production. It is worth drawing a parallel, therefore, between poetic imitation that would have been clear to readers of Ronsard’s poem and the imitation of nature that was central to the products of life casting. Like the poems, life casts were prized for their ability to imitate their given source. With the subject of the rose to link these two objects of artistic creation, one could certainly imagine Renaissance individuals discussing these links between poetry and sculpture when standing before a life-cast rose.
Bibliography
Amico, Leonard. Bernard Palissy: In Search of Earthly Paradise. Paris and New York: Flammarion, 1996.
DellaNeva, JoAnn. Unlikely Exemplars: Reading and Imitating beyond the Italian Canon in French Renaissance Poetry. Newark, Del.: University Press, 2009.
Ernst, Kris. Le Style rustique: le moulage d’après nature chez Wenzel Jamnitzer et Bernard Palissy (1926) suivi de Georg Hoefnagel et le naturalisme scientifique (1927). Paris: Macula, 2005.
Greene, Thomas. The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982.
Kayser, Petra. “The intellectual and the artisan: Wenzel Jamnitzer and Bernard Palissy uncover the secrets of nature.” Autstralian and New Zeland Journal of Art 7 (2006): 45-61.
Lein, Edgar. “Über den Naturabguss von Pflanzen und Tieren.” In Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1541-1868. Band II. Goldglanz und Silberstrahl. Begleitband zur Ausstellung im Germanischen Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg. 20. September 2007 – 13. Januar 2008, edited by Karin Tebbe. 205-15. Nürnberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 2007.
Littré, Émile. Dictionnaire de la langue française. 4 volumes. Paris: L. Hachette, 1873-77.
Palissy, Bernard. Discours admirables de la nature des eaux et fontaines, tant naturelles qu’artificielles, des métaux, des sels et salines, des pierres, des terres, du feu et des émaux. Paris: Martin le Jeune, 1580.
Shapiro, Norman, editor and translator. Lyrics of the French Renaissance: Marot, Du Bellay, Ronsard. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
Smith, Pamela. “Between Nature and Art: Casting from Life in Sixteenth-Century Europe.” In Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts, edited by Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold, 45-63. Aldershot, Vt.: Ashgate, 2014.
. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Smith, Pamela, and Tonny Beentjes. “Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life-Casting Techniques.” Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010): 128-79.
1 Translation of the word feuille is a complex matter, as the word can be understood to mean either petal or leaf, depending on context. For a further discussion of this term and its translation, see note 5.
2 The reason to translate “foeuille” as leaf in this instance is based on the illustration in the margin of this text, which will be discussed below.
3 See Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Ms. Fr. 640 (henceforth cited as BnF Ms. Fr. 640), fols. 116r, 117r, 117v, 129r, 145v, 154v, 155r, 157r, 160r.
4 For the author’s discussion of his molding of a marigold, see the recipe “Flowers” on fol. 145v.
5 Translation note: There is a major inconsistency in the current translations of the manuscript regarding the words feuille, foeuille, and foille, all of which are variants on the same term. In the sixteenth century, such words could be translated as “petal” or “leaf,” a distinction the current translations struggle to achieve. The word pétale was first used in 1649 by Fabio Colonna precisely in order to differentiate petals from leaves. See Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française (Paris: L. Hachette, 1873-77), III: 1084. This entry here corrects the current translation of fol. 129r, which refers to “feuilles” as leaves, which far more likely makes reference to a petals, as the entry later emphasizes the softness of the feuilles. On fol. 155r, by comparison, foeuille is translated as petal.
6 As stated in note 3, there is a substantial discrepancy in the current translations of the word feuille and its variants. In the recipe on fol. 154v, the translation currently calls for this word to be translated as “leaf,” however, given the explicit reference to the delicacy of the feuilles of pansies and roses in the recipe, it seems much more likely that this term refers to petals.
7 “Et ceste voye est la plus facille, mays l’aultre se peult faire aussy.”
8 In a note in the margin on fol. 156v, the author notes that should there be any defects in the fly’s wings, they can be substituted by simply cutting out a thinly hammered piece of tin, gold or silver. Such a substitution seems less likely for the more conspicuous rose petals.
9 On Palissy, Jamnitzer and the process of life casting, see especially Pamela Smith, “Between Nature and Art: Casting from Life in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” in Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts, ed. Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold (Aldershot, Vt.: Ashgate, 2014), 45-63; Pamela Smith and Tonny Beentjes, “Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life-Casting Techniques,” Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010): 128-79; Edgar Lein, “Über den Naturabguss von Pflanzen und Tieren,” in Nürnberger Goldschmiedekunst 1541-1868. Band II. Goldglanz und Silberstrahl. Begleitband zur Ausstellung im Germanischen Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg. 20. September 2007 – 13. Januar 2008, ed. by Karin Tebbe (Nürnberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 2007), 205-15; Petra Kayser, “The intellectual and the artisan: Wenzel Jamnitzer and Bernard Palissy uncover the secrets of nature,” Autstralian and New Zeland Journal of Art 7 (2006): 45-61; Kris Ernst, Le Style rustique: le moulage d’après nature chez Wenzel Jamnitzer et Bernard Palissy (1926) suivi de Georg Hoefnagel et le naturalisme scientifique (1927) (Paris: Macula, 2005).
10 Marc Smith made this observation in the current comments section of the translation of the manuscript. See Bernard Palissy, Discours admirables de la nature des eaux et fontaines, tant naturelles qu’artificielles, des métaux, des sels et salines, des pierres, des terres, du feu et des émaux (Paris: Martin le Jeune, 1580).
11 For example, Palissy notes that flowers (including roses) lose their colors “en un instant,” whereas natural stones do not. See Palissy, Discours admirables, 240.
12 On this object and its relation to Palissy’s artistic production generally, see Pamela Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 100-106; Leonard Amico, Bernard Palissy: In Search of Earthly Paradise (Paris and New York: Flammarion, 1996), 94.
13 The recipe “For grottoes” on fol. 118r discusses many different materials to be used in making grottoes. Especially notable are the recipe’s multiple references to the distinctive beauty of the materials, which find a parallel in the discussion of beauty in the recipe for roses on fol. 155v.
14 Mignonne, allons voir si la rose/ Qui ce matin avoit desclose/ Sa robe de pourpre au Soleil,/ A point perdu ceste vesprée/ Les plis de sa robe pourprée,/ Et son teint au vostre pareil. /Las ! voyez comme en peu d’espace,/ Mignonne, elle a dessus la place/ Las ! las ses beautez laissé cheoir !/ Ô vrayment marastre Nature,/ Puis qu’une telle fleur ne dure/ Que du matin jusques au soir / Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne,/ Tandis que vostre âge fleuronne/ En sa plus verte nouveauté,/ Cueillez, cueillez vostre jeunesse :/ Comme à ceste fleur la vieillesse/ Fera ternir vostre beauté. For a reproduction of the poem and its translation, see Norman Shapiro, ed. and trans., Lyrics of the French Renaissance: Marot, Du Bellay, Ronsard (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 324-25.
15 Thomas Greene, The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 197-219; JoAnn Della Neva, Unlikely Exemplars: Reading and Imitating beyond the Italian Canon in French Renaissance Poetry (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 2009), 222-89.