Biondo, Flavio
(1392-1463) Italian historian and archeologist
Born at Forli and educated at Cremona, he was caught up in the politics of the time and lived in exile in Imola, Fer-rara, and Venice until Pope Eugenius IV employed him in the papal Curia in 1433. Though he had little interest in the speculative side of the Renaissance he was the first historian who showed awareness of the gap separating the classical from the medieval world. He published three volumes which collected the antiquities of Italy as far as they were then known: Roma instaurata (1440-63), Roma tri-umphans (1456-60), and Italia instaurata (1456-60). The effect of these books was to stimulate topographical research and encourage the development of chorography, the study of local history from surviving remains. They also influenced artists, particularly mantegna. Biondo’s last work, left incomplete at his death, was his Historiarum ab inclinatione Romane imperii decades in 42 books, dealing with the period 410-1441.
Biringuccio, Vannoccio
(1480-c. 1539) Italian metallurgist
The son of a Sienese official, Biringuccio began his career in the arsenal of Pandolfo Petrucci, ruler of Siena. After a period of exile during which he worked in Parma, Ferrara, and Venice, he returned to Siena in 1530. In 1538, shortly before his death, he entered the service of Pope Paul III in Rome as superintendent of the papal arsenal. Biringuccio’s observations on his lifetime’s trade were published posthumously in his Pirotechnia (1540). Lavishly illustrated, it contained detailed accounts of the mining and extraction of ores, the blast furnace, the manufacture of cannon and gunpowder, and the production of glassware. There were 10 editions of the work before 1678, including translations into English and French, keeping Biringuc-cio’s work in wide use as a practical text well into the 18th century.
Bisticci, Vespasiano da
(1421-1498) Florentine bookseller, scholar, and biographer
He was agent for the three greatest collectors of manuscripts of the early Renaissance: Cosimo de’ medici, Pope nicholas v, and Federico da montefeltro, duke of Urbino. Manuscripts from his workshops were exported all over Europe, even to England and Hungary. He was the largest employer of copyists in Europe and his reputation for craftsmanship maintained the market for manuscripts for some time after the invention of printing. On one occasion he and a team of 45 copyists produced 200 volumes in 22 months for Cosimo’s library in the Badia, Fiesole. He took a scholarly interest in the books his workmen produced and guaranteed the accuracy of the texts as well as the beauty of the execution. This interest helped him to make the contacts with scholars and humanists which he used in his Vite d’uomini illustri del secolo XV (Lives of famous men of the 15th century; written after 1480), which gives many biographical details not available elsewhere and is notable for its lack of malice.
Blaeu, Willem Jansz.
(1571-1638) Dutch cartographer and astronomer
Born at Alkmaar, Blaeu served a two-year apprenticeship in Amsterdam, then developed his geographical and astronomical skills under the guidance of Tycho brahe. In 1596 he returned to Amsterdam, and established himself as a maker of both globes and scientific instruments. He also founded a publishing house (1599), specializing in cartography. Blaeu enjoyed universal acclaim for the quality of his work; his instruments and globes featured unprecedented precision, and he developed a new type of press for mapmaking. His most famous works are a world map issued in 1605, Het Licht der Zeevaerdt (The Light of Navigation; a three-volume sea atlas, 1608-21), and a magnificent series of atlases, beginning in 1638 and ongoing at the time of Blaeu’s death. After Blaeu died, his son Jan Blaeu (died 1673) continued his work, the 11-volume Atlas Major (1662) being the firm’s greatest achievement.
Blahoslav, Jan
(1523-1571) Czech humanist scholar and theologian
Blahoslav was born in P&rbreve;erov, northeast of Brno, and was a leading member of the czech brethren, whose bishop he became in 1557. Under his leadership the brethren became a significant force on the Czech cultural scene. Blahoslav translated the New Testament into Czech (1564), and his version was incorporated virtually unaltered into the Kralice Bible (1588). His Czech grammar was influential in establishing Czech as a literary language, and he also contributed to musicology, producing the first theoretical treatise in the vernacular under the title Musica (1558) and a hymn book (1561) with well over 700 tunes.
Bloemaert, Abraham
(1564-1651) Dutch painter Bloemaert was born in Gorinchem, the son of the architect Cornelis Bloemaert (c. 1540-95). Abraham trained in Utrecht, visited France (1580-83), and then settled in Utrecht, where he ran a school that attracted many pupils, including his own four sons. Apart from a brief sojourn in Amsterdam (1591-93), when his father was appointed city architect there, Abraham remained in Utrecht for the rest of his long life. A versatile artist, he painted biblical and mythological subjects in the mannerist mode made current in northern Europe by Frans floris and spranger. Bloemaert later came under the influence of caravaggio, as mediated by his pupil Gerard Honthorst (1590-1656) who studied in Italy between 1610 and 1620, and later still he adopted a more classical style. He was also a portraitist and a prolific and accomplished draftsman, particularly notable for his landscape drawings.
Blois
A French city on the River Loire. First mentioned in the sixth century, it was the seat of the powerful counts of Blois in the Middle Ages. The city was acquired by Louis of Orleans late in the 14th century and passed to the French crown when his grandson became louis xii of France (1498). In the 16 th century Blois was an important administrative and royal center. Its many Gothic and Renaissance buildings include the chateau with its famous francis i facade (1515-24). The chateau was the scene of the murder (1588) of the duke of guise by order of henry iii.
Blondeel, Lancelot
(1496-1561) Flemish painter, architect, designer, and engraver
He was born at Poperinghe, but became a master painter in the guild at Bruges in 1519. The chimneypiece (1530) for the Greffe du Franc, Bruges, is an example of his architectural work in the early Renaissance style, and Renaissance elements also appear in his triptych of SS Cosmas and Damian (1523; St. Jacques, Bruges). In 1550 he and Jan van scorel were commissioned to restore the ghent altarpiece.
Blundeville,
(1522-1606) English polymath and autodidact
Blundeville spent most of his life near the English city of Norwich, with occasional trips to London with the fruits of his liberal studies—in historiography, moral philosophy, politics, and logic. He also published books on the training of horses, on astronomy, and celestial navigation. He is perhaps best remembered as the author of Exercises for "young gentlemen" on astronomy, navigation, and other topics (1594, with several later editions), and as the earliest translator into English of Federico Grisone’s popular Italian text on horsemanship, Gli ordini di cavalcare (1550) as A newe booke containing the arte of ryding, and breakinge greate Horses.. .(1560; see equitation). His career is notable for its confidence in self-directed learning: in The Art of Logike (1599), he stated his credo that "Everie man [may] by his own industrie attaine unto right good knowledge & be made thereby the more able to glorify God & to profit his country."
Boccaccino, Boccaccio
(c. 1466-1525) Italian painter Boccaccino came from Ferrara and was influenced by the Ferrarese master ercole de’ roberti. He also adopted elements of the Venetian style. His best work was the frescoes he executed in the cathedral at Cremona between 1506 and 1519. Other works on religious subjects are preserved in the Accademia and Museo Correr, Venice. Galeazzo campi was among his Cremonese followers, and Boccaccino’s son Camillo (1501-46) was among those who worked, like the Campi brothers, on the frescoes in San Sigismondo, Cremona.
Boccaccio, Giovanni
(1313-1375) Italian poet and scholar
He is one of the greatest figures in the history of European literature. The recovery and study of classical texts, which was the driving force behind Renaissance humanism, can justly be claimed to have originated with Boccaccio and his older contemporary petrarch. Their determination that the classical ideal should permeate every aspect of life led to what has been called the "humanism of the vernacular": the ennobling not only of their native tongue, but also of everyday experience, under the influence of classical models.
Boccaccio’s birthplace is uncertain, but was probably either Certaldo or Florence. He spent his early years in Florence before being sent to Naples (c. 1328) to learn business in the service of the wealthy bardi family: his merchant father had apparently little sympathy with his son’s literary aspirations. The dozen or so years Boccaccio spent in Naples were decisive for him, since it was there that he gained the support of King robert of anjou, was introduced into the circle of humanists around the king, and began to write. It was also during this period that he fell in love with the mysterious "Fiammetta" (possibly Maria d’Aquino, the king’s illegitimate daughter), who, like Dante’s Beatrice or Petrarch’s Laura, was to be the inspiration for his writing for many years. Among the works he produced at this time are the prose Il filocolo (c. 1336) and the verse Il filostrato (c. 1338); the latter was to be a major influence on chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1380-85). In 1341 he also finished Teseida, an epic in ottava rima, the verse meter which was to become the characteristic vehicle for Italian epic or narrative poetry. The following year he completed his Ameto (see pastoral).
In all his early writings Boccaccio is an innovator, but it was the decade following his return to Florence (c. 1340) that saw him at the height of his powers, culminating in the composition of the decameron (1348-53).
During the period of the Decameron’s composition Boccaccio received a series of appointments as ambassador, and in 1351 he was sent to recall the exiled Petrarch to Florence. His friendship with Petrarch was very significant; under his influence Boccaccio turned more and more towards scholarship, and together they traced the paths along which humanism was to develop.His biographical compilations, De casibus virorum illustrium ("On the fates of famous men") and De claris mulieribus ("On famous women") were mines of material for later writers. He wrote a biography of Dante (c. 1355) and in 1373 lectured in Florence on the Divina commedia. Later that year illness forced him to retire to Certaldo, where he died. When he died, within 18 months of Petrarch, Franco sacchetti expressed the feelings of many when he said that all poetry was now extinct.
Individual stories from the Decameron circulated throughout Europe in the Middle Ages and there have been numerous modern editions. Henry Parker, Lord Morley (1476-1556) translated into English 46 of the lives in De claris mulieribus, probably using the text of the Latin edition published at Louvain in 1487 (manuscript at Chatsworth House, England; printed Early English Text Society, 1970). A new translation by Virginia Brown was published by Harvard University Press in 2003.
Boccanegra, Simone
(c. 1301-1363) Doge of Genoa (1339-44, 1356-63)
Born into a prominent Genoese family, Boccanegra was first appointed doge in the Guelf-Ghibelline crisis of 1339, the Genoese hoping that he would show leadership qualities similar to those of his great-uncle, Guglielmo (captain of the people, 1257-62). However, he failed to end the conflict, and his greed and heavy tax exactions led to his exile to Pisa (1344). He later participated in Genoa’s revolt (1355) against the Visconti of Milan, who had taken control of the city in 1353, and was reappointed doge the next year. He remained in office until his sudden death, traditionally explained as the result of poisoning at a banquet. The composer Verdi made him the hero of an idealized opera (1857).
Bodin, Jean
(1530-1596) French lawyer and political philosopher
Born at Angers, he became professor of Roman law at Toulouse until he entered the service of the French Crown (1567). In 1581 he was involved in negotiations for the projected marriage of Elizabeth I of England and francis, duke of alen^on. His reputation rests on his political writings, in particular, Six livres de la republique (1576), which he himself translated into Latin (1586). The work expounds his theories of an ideal government based on a powerful hereditary monarchy kept in check by certain political institutions. It established Bodin as the founder of political science in France and was to exert a great influence on later thinkers such as Hobbes, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. His wide-ranging works include De la de-monomanie (1580), a denunciation of witchcraft, and a comparative study of religions, the Colloquium Heptaplom-eres, written in 1588 but not published until the 19th century. He died in Laon of the plague.
Bodleian Library
The main library of Oxford University and one of the oldest and most important non-lending reference libraries in Great Britain. Founded originally in the 14th century, its first major benefactor was Humfrey, duke of Gloucester (1391-1447), but by the mid-16th century his collection of rare manuscripts had been dispersed. The library was refounded in 1598 by Bodley (1545-1613), diplomat and scholar. Originally designed as a fortress of Protestant learning, the library soon became a storehouse of valuable books and manuscripts. This was largely owing to Bodley’s arrangement (1610) with the Stationers’ Company of London, in which they undertook to give the library a copy of every book they printed, but also to a series of important acquisitions since Bodley’s time; these included the library of the antiquarian John Selden in 1659, and the Tanner, Rawlinson, Malone, and Douce collections.
Boehme, Jakob (Jakob Behmen)
(1575-1624) German mystic
The son of a farmer at Altseidenberg in Upper Lusatia, Boehme became a shoemaker in 1589. He moved to Gor-litz in Silesia where he published his first work Aurora, oder die Morgenrote im Aufgang (1612). This mystical work aroused the wrath of the Lutheran pastor, Gregory Richter, who persuaded the municipal council to suppress Boehme’s works. Boehme, however, continued writing; several more treatises, some of them published posthumously, were completed before his death at Gorlitz. These include the devotional work Der Weg zu Christo (1623), De signatura rerum (1623) on cosmology (see signatures, theory of), and Mysterium Magnum (1623), a mystical interpretation of Genesis. Although obscure (especially in their use of Paracelsian terminology) and open to dualist and pantheistic interpretations, his works had a lasting influence on people as diverse as the Quaker George Fox, the Cambridge Platonists, and the great German Romantics.
Boiardo, Matteo Maria
(1441-1494) Italian poet and courtier
Born at Scandiano, of which he became count, member of a prominent Ferrarese family, Boiardo received a classical education in Latin and Greek, law and philosophy. As a courtier he served the dukes of Ferrara—Borso, Ercole, and Sigismondo d’este—and was appointed governor of Modena and later of Reggio.
Boiardo’s works reflect the polished manners and the brilliant literary culture of the Este court. Among his earlier works are eclogues written in imitation of Virgil and translations of Herodotus and Apuleius. His reputation as one of the finest lyric poets of the 15th century rests on three Amorum libri (1499), comprising 180 poems, Petrarchan in style though not excessively so, which commemorate his love of Antonia Caprara. Boiardo’s major work is the epic Orlando innamorato, of which he completed two books (1483) and left unfinished a third (1495). Drawing on French romances, which were in vogue at Ferrara, Boiardo combined heroic legends of charlemagne and his knights (as in the Chanson de Roland) with the romantic and fantastic matter of Britain (see arthur, legend of); he also imposed courtly ideals of love and courtesy on cruder sources of popular origin. These innovations were carried further and refined by ariosto in orlando furioso. Boiardo’s text, which had regional features in its language, was Tuscanized by Francesco berni in 1541, and the original text was not recovered until the 19th century.
Boleyn, Anne
(1507-1536) English queen, second wife of Henry VIII
She spent her youth in France and received an excellent education during her attendance at the French court, developing talents as a poet and letter-writer. Her elder sister, Mary, became henry vlll’s mistress in 1522; around 1526 Henry became infatuated with Anne. She refused for several years to enter into sexual relations with him, insisting on marriage. After protracted negotiations to divorce his first wife, catherine of aragon, Henry broke with the Church of Rome and married Anne in secret (1533), by which time she was pregnant. Her child, the future elizabeth i, was born in September that year. However Henry rapidly lost interest in Anne after her only son was miscarried, and Jane Seymour supplanted Anne in his affections. To get rid of Anne, Henry used the pretext of her indiscreet behavior at court to accuse her of adultery, as well as incest with her brother. Tried on May 15, 1536, she was beheaded four days later on Tower Green, London.
Bologna
A north Italian city at the foot of the Apennines. Originally the Etruscan town of Felsina, Bologna prospered on account both of its position on an important trade route to Florence and of its textile industry, especially silk. Claimed by the papacy in 1278, the city suffered from the region’s political turmoil and rivalries; it was dominated by a series of lords, notably the ben-tivoglio family during the 15th century. Pope julius ii finally established papal authority over Bologna in 1506. The old and famous university of Bologna (founded in the 11th century) attracted scholars from all over Europe during the period of the Renaissance; from the 12th century its faculty of law led legal studies in Europe. The late 16th and early 17th century Bolognese school of artists included the carracci, Guido reni, Domenichino, and Francesco Albani. Notable palaces and churches from the Renaissance period include San Petronio and sanmicheli’s Palazzo Bevilacqua (1477-82). The university was housed (1562-1800) in the Archiginnasio, remodeled for it by Antonio Morandi.
Bologna, Concord(at) of
(1516) An agreement between Pope Leo X and Francis I of France, which revoked the Pragmatic Sanction of bourges and restored papal authority over the Gallican (French) Church. Nonetheless, Francis maintained a significant degree of control over ecclesiastical affairs in France under those clauses that stated that the king was to appoint archbishops, bishops, abbots, and conventual priors, and, subject to certain rules, the pope was to confirm the nominations. If two successive royal nominations were found to be invalid, the appointment lapsed to the pope.
Bombelli, Raffaele
(c. 1526-1573) Italian mathematician and engineer
Little is known of Bombelli’s life other than that he was born at Bologna, became an engineer in the service of the bishop of Melfi, and was the author of Lalgebra (1572). This was the first Italian text to be so called and contained notable advances in the history of equations, and in the development of an adequate algebraic symbolism. The analysis of the cubic equation proposed by Niccolo tartaglia had led to a number of cases involving roots of negative numbers. Unsure of how to deal with such items, Renaissance mathematicians had classified them as irreducible cases and ignored them. Bombelli, however, made the first significant advance in the handling of such problems. In the field of symbolism he took the step of representing unknown quantities and exponents by special symbols. Though other systems came to be preferred, Bombelli had nonetheless shown the need for such expressions.
Bontemps, Pierre
(c. 1507-1568) French sculptor Assistant to primaticcio at fontainebleau, Bontemps is best known for his work on the tomb of Francis I and Claude de France and their children (1547-58) at the church of St. Denis. The monument was designed by Philibert delorme; Bontemps worked on it alongside Francois Marchand. Bontemps also worked on a monument for the heart of Francis I in the same church, incorporating a number of features from the outdated Gothic tradition. As a Huguenot, he became a religious fugitive after 1562.
Book illustration
The earliest illustrated books inevitably suffered by comparison with illuminated manuscripts. Some copies of early printed books have however been decorated as though they were manuscripts, for example, the Bodleian Library copy of Jenson’s 1476 edition of Pliny’s Natural History, enriched with splendid Florentine illumination. Printing was slow to kill the earlier craft in most of Europe, especially Italy.
Block-books, mostly German, with text and picture cut on the same block, began to be produced about 1430. The oldest surviving single woodcut is a St. Christopher of 1423. Although woodcuts and text were formed into books soon afterwards, no extant block-book bears a date before 1470, and by 1480 they were ousted by the spread of printing with movable type. Most block-books were intended for those who preferred stories in pictures, with as few words as possible, so the Biblia pauperum and other religious writings provided most of the material.
Ornamental initials, sometimes printed in color, and woodcuts soon appeared, to such an extent that about a third of all incunabula are thus illustrated. Albrecht Pfis-ter of Bamberg added woodcuts to his popular books in the 1460s, though the pictures were printed after the text. The quality of book illustration in Italy was soon the best in Europe, culminating in the hypnerotomachia polifili (1499). Engraving on metal was first used in Florence in 1477, though the process was not taken up on a significant scale until the middle of the next century. The use of roman or italic type in Italy led to smaller books with a lighter appearance than black-letter printing, an effect echoed in the illustrations (see typography).
In Germany the printers of Augsburg specialized in illustrated books, and Gunther Zainer’s Golden Legend (1471) has historiated initials echoing manuscript ones. A little later his brother Johann, working in Ulm, printed an edition of Aesop the illustrations of which were subsequently used in caxton’s 1484 London edition, the first known example of a sort of borrowing that later became widespread. The Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle), was printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger in 1493, with nearly 2000 pictures from only 645 blocks, an economy allowed by using illustrations as decoration rather than an integrated complement to the text.
The first named illustrator was Erhard Reuwich, whose pictures for Peregrinationes in terram sanctam (Mainz, 1486) are an essential part of the book. Later, professional illustrators like Hans (II) weiditz, who designed woodcuts for brunfels’s herbal, were also given credit in print for their work.
In the 1530s and 1540s Basle became a famous center for illustrated books. Durer may have worked there in the 1490s, and his influence certainly refined the local style. The holbein family lived there, though the books they illustrated were often printed in France, like the Dance of Death (Lyons, 1538). Leonhart fuchs’s herbal (1542) and vesalius’s textbook of human anatomy (1548) were two famous Basle productions of this period.
Plantin’s Antwerp
Polyglot Bible (1568-73) features both woodcuts and copper engravings. This printer, who encouraged the use of pictures, organized his illustrators on a grand scale, so that blocks from his store were often borrowed and used elsewhere. By the end of the 16th century, engravings, which allowed greater delicacy, were overtaking woodcuts for book illustration. The products of both methods were still colored by hand, sometimes in the printers’ own workshops, if colored copies were required. The quality of the engraving, as in flower books like Crispin de Passe’s Hortus floridus (Utrecht, 1614) is sometimes so fine that the addition of color is the reverse of improvement.
Book of Common Prayer
The official service book of the Church of England, containing offices of morning and evening prayer, guides on how to administer the sacraments and other rites, Psalms, and (since 1552) the Ordinal (rules for appointing clergy). The Prayer Book is an essential record of 16th-century Protestantism. During the 1530s, cranmer and other English reformers endeavored to amend, simplify, and standardize liturgical instructions for priests and worshipers. The first Prayer Book was eventually printed by edward vi’s Parliament of 1549, and a Uniformity Act enforced its exclusive use. Typically for a Tudor Anglican document, the book dis pleased both Catholic traditionalists and Protestant innovators.
The second edition of 1552 went further towards Protestantism, dropping the word "Mass," for example. But in 1553 the Catholic Mary I abolished the Prayer Book altogether, restoring Latin Masses. It returned in 1559, under Elizabeth I’s Protestant regime (see elizabethan settlement). This version effectively reproduced the 1552 text, although its Edwardian antipapism was moderated. Although banned during the Puritan-dominated years of 1645-60, subjected to numerous later changes (the last major revision was executed in 1662), and largely replaced by modern-language services in the 1970s, the Book of Common Prayer remains a permanent reflection of Anglican principles and practices. Superb reprints of every major edition are accessible on the Internet.
Book trade
The distribution of printed books was able to follow patterns established by the commercial production and sale of multiple manuscript copies of texts in demand. Trade fairs, such as those of Frankfurt (originally two a year) and Lyons (four a year) existed before printing, but they were developed as useful centers for printers, publishers, and booksellers to meet. In 1498, for example, Anton Koberger of Nuremberg was already ordering 100 copies of a book from Milan to be delivered to his representative at Frankfurt. For two centuries Frankfurt was the major market-place for book dealers from Holland, Switzerland, France, and Italy, as well as Germany, though the censorship imposed there in 1576 sent Protestant publishers off to establish an alternative center in Leipzig.
Printed catalogues helped to publicize books available at the fairs; individual printers issued them from the 1560s and joint ones were compiled by the fair organizers from 1590 in Frankfurt and 1594 in Leipzig. Hopeful predictions of publication dates were as common then as now, for in 1653 James Allestrye, an Englishman, complained that "it is a very usual thing for the booksellers of Germany to send the titles of their books to be put in the catalogue before they are printed, so that at present they are not to be had." Even so, the choice was wide, for 22,000 books were listed between 1564 and 1600. The fairs were also appropriate places to buy and sell type or engage illustrators, translators, editors, or even authors.
Latin remained the predominant language of the printed book until at least 1500, so the market for books was effectively an international one from the start, and the size of editions printed in trading centers like Venice grew to reflect the demand for them. As German craftsmen became printers in other countries, they naturally turned to German merchants to sell their products elsewhere. Barrels of books packed in sheets followed trade routes all over Europe, with the reputations of the greatest printing houses, like those of estienne, froben, or plantin, being just as widespread. The growth of vernacular printing inevitably restricted the distribution of the books concerned, although, in the hands of publishers such as the elzevir family, books in the main European languages were not necessarily printed in their native countries. Even caxton’s first book in English was actually printed in Bruges.
