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Robert Hooke’s Collection of Architectural Books and Prints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Anthony Geraghty
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Extract

When Christopher Wren visited Paris in 1665–66, he famously returned with ‘almost all France in paper’. His friend and colleague Robert Hooke, however, was not so lucky; his collection of architectural books and prints was acquired from London. This article outlines the contents of Hooke’s architectural library and considers the general availability of architectural publications in late seventeenth-century London.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 47 , 2004 , pp. 113 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2004

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References

Notes

1 Soo, Lydia M., Wren’s ‘Tracts’ on Architecture and Other Writings (Cambridge, 1998), p. 105 Google Scholar.

2 Bibliotecha Hookiana sive catalogus diversorum librorum (London, 1703), with an Appendix to Dr. Hooke’s Catalogue. This has twice been published in facsimile: Feisenberger, H. A., Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons: Volume 11, Scientists (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Rostenberg, Leona, The Library of Robert Hooke: The Scientific Book Trade of Restoration England (Santa Monica, 1989)Google Scholar. For a general discussion of Hooke’s library, see also Feisenberger, H. A., ‘The Libraries of Newton, Hooke and Boyle’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 21 (1966), pp. 42–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-1680, ed. Robinson, H. W. and Adams, W. (London, 1935)Google Scholar. The original manuscript is London, Guildhall Library (hereafter GL), MS 1758. The published edition omits Hooke’s entries for March-July 1672 and January 1681-May 1683.

4 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 31 (octavo, lot 440): ‘M. Vitruvius de Architectura, cum Fig. Titulus deest.’

5 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 7 (folio, lot 292): ‘M. Vitruvii Pollion. de Architectura lib. x. cum Com. & Fig. &c. Ven. 1567.’

6 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 7 (folio, lot 293): ‘Idem [Vitruvius] Belgice, per D. Gualtherum H. Rivium, cum Fig. Bas. 1575.’

7 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 7 (folio, lot 294): ‘Les x Livres d’Architecture de Vitruve, Corrigez & Traduits en Francois, avec des Notes & des Figures Par. 1673.’

8 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 31 (octavo, lot 443): ‘Architecture de Vitruve en Abrege par M. Porault Amst. 1681.’

9 For Ryff’s German translation of Vitruvius, see Wiebenson, Dora and Baines, Claire, The Mark J. Miliard Architectural Collection, Volume I, French Books, Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries (New York, 1993), p. 470 Google Scholar.

10 Harris, Eileen, British Architectural Books and Writers 1556-1785 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 462 Google Scholar.

11 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 20 January 1675. Richards had already published The First Book of Architecture (London, 1663), a partial translation of Palladio’s Quattro libri (Harris, British Architectural Books and Writers, pp. 352-55).

12 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 21 September 1676.

13 Hooke records that Sir John Hoskyns FRS ‘read the proposition of Vitruvius’ on 5 October 1676 (The Diary of Robert Hooke). The occasion is not known.

14 A few year’s later, for example, he collaborated on cartographic projects with Moses Pitt and other publishers and printers. See Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago, 1988)Google Scholar.

15 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 20 October 1673, 4 May 1674,17 May 1674, 9 November 1674,13 March 1675, 25 March 1675, 11 January 1675, 8 May 1676, 22 September 1676.

16 Gunther, R. T., Early Science in Oxford, X (Oxford, 1935), p. 163 Google Scholar.

17 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 20 (quarto, lot 538): ‘L’archittura di Leon. Batt. Alberti, con. Fig. Ven. 1565.’

18 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 20 (quarto, lot 539): ‘[L’Archittura] Di Sebast. Serlio, com Fig. Ven. 1574.’ This is probably incorrect, as no Venetian edition of 1574 is otherwise known to exist. He probably owned the Venice 1584 edition. The Diary of Robert Hooke, 22 September 1672.

19 Bibliotecha Hookiana, pp. 7 (folio, lots 288-89), 44 (quarto, lot 137).

20 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 9 April 1673, 26 January 1677.

21 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 31 (octavo, lot 439): ‘Reigles dess 5 Ordres d’Architect de Vinole, revenues par le Muet. Amst.’ The likely identity of this edition (Amsterdam, 1643) is discussed in Stoesser-Johnston, A., ‘Robert Hooke and Holland: Dutch influence on his architecture’, Bulletin van de koninklijke Nederlandse oudheidkundige bond, 99 (2000), pp. 121-37Google Scholar (p. 34).

22 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 6 November 1673.

23 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 7 (folio, lot 287): ‘Regola delii 5 Ordini d’Arch, di M. Giac. Barozzi, &c. com Fig. Amst. 1648.’

24 GL, MS 1758, 18 February 1681: ‘bought in holborn ... Vignola 2sh.’

25 For seventeenth-century French architectural publications, see Wiebenson and Baines, French Books.

26 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 7 November 1674, 9 November 1674; Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 53 (folio, lot 7).

27 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 9 November 1674, 25 March 1675. On 23 March Hooke records: ‘Heard that there had been a great fire at Paris among the booksellers.’

28 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 10 (quarto, lot 137).

29 For the contents of the ‘Petit Marot’, see Mauban, A., Jean Marot, architecte et graveur parisien (Paris, 1944), pp. 99–107 Google Scholar.

30 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 3 July 1675; Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 31 (octavo, lot 438).

31 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 31 (octavo, lot 441).

32 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 28 and 30 December 1677. This work is not listed in the sale catalogue.

33 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 8-14 October 1676; Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 40 (folio, lot 109, where erroneously dated 1694). It is probably significant that Hooke bought this work in translation and that he did so at exactly the moment plans were afoot to publish Wase’s English translation of Vitruvius, for Evelyn’s translation was the obvious precedent.

34 Wiebenson and Baines, French Books, p. xiv.

35 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 14 June 1676, 24 June 1676, 1 July 1676. On 15 July 1676 Hooke was again at Boyle’s house, where he read a ‘French booke’ (The Diary of Robert Hooke).

36 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 20 October 1676,18 November 1676, 23 November 1676.

37 Wiebenson & Baines, French Books, p. 183.

38 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 18 October 1676, 1 December 1676, 10 December 1676, 16 December 1676.

39 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 10 March 1677; Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 20 (quarto, lot 537).

40 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 7 November 1674, 9 November 1674.

41 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 53 (folio, lot 2).

42 Hooke’s preliminary drawings are London, British Library (hereafter BL) Add. MS 5238, fol. 55 (reproduced in The Diary of Robert Hooke, pp. 146-47), and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Gough Maps 44, no. 119 (reproduced in Colvin, H. M., Architectural Drawings in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1952), pl. 7 Google Scholar). These were probably the drawings made by Hooke on 13 November 1674 (The Diary of Robert Hooke).

43 See Stoesser-Johnston, ‘Robert Hooke and Holland’, pp. 128-29.

44 GL, MS 1758,18 February 1681: ‘bought in holborne Ditterling 5sh.’ Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 7 (folio, lot 290).

45 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 7 (folio, lot 291).

46 Hall, M. Boas, The Library and Archives of the Royal Society (London, 1992), pp. 2–6 Google Scholar. See also, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Perceval Bequest J.50 (Hooke’s hand-written minute of a Royal Society meeting of 29 August 1678, when Henry Howard FRS, 6th Duke of Norfolk, ‘Renewed the Declaration of his Guift formerly made’).

47 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 25 May 1673, 2 June 1673.

48 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 9 April 1673, 26 January 1677.

49 Perry, William, Bibliotheca norfolciana sive catalogus libb. manuscriptorum & impressorum (London, 1681), p. 24, 64, 90, 96, 104, 116, 119, 121Google Scholar. Perry’s annotated copy is preserved in Cambridge University Library (Adv.b.41.1).

50 GL, MS 1758,19 February 1681. This item is not listed in the Bibliotecha Hookiana.

51 GL, MS 1758,15 June 1672.

52 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 24 December 1674, 17 August 1676, 10 June 1677. On 24 December 1675 Hooke bought twenty-four unidentified ‘views’ (The Diary of Robert Hooke).

53 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1 August 1673.

54 Préaud, Maxime, Inventaire du fonds français, Graveurs du XVII siècle, XI-XII (Paris, 1993-99)Google Scholar.

55 Massar, Phyllis D., Presenting Stefano della Bella: Seventeenth-century Printmaker (New York, 1971)Google Scholar.

56 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 17 January 1676, 13 May 1676, 3 June 1676. For Woodroofe’s collections, see Geraghty, A., ‘Edward Woodroofe: Sir Christopher Wren’s first draughtsman’, The Burlington Magazine, August 2001, pp. 474-79Google Scholar.

57 The frieze designs of Edward Pearce (d. 1658), published in 1640, are a rare example of English engraved ornament from this period (Harris, British Architectural Books and Writers, pp. 367-68). On 10 November 1675 Hooke purchased ‘Peirces bits’ (The Diary of Robert Hooke), which was possibly this work.

58 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 12 November 1676: ‘Missd Ville de Richeleu q. to whom lent.’ The wording of this entry suggests that Hooke had mislaid his copy, hence its absence from the sale catalogue. For Marot’s Le magnifique chasteau de Richelieu, see Mauban, Jean Marot, pp. 120-23; see also Wiebenson & Baines, French Books, pp. 344-45.

59 Geraghty, ‘Edward Woodroofe’, p. 478.

60 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 10 June 1677.

61 Hooke had seen examples of Perelle’s work two years previously (The Diary of Robert Hooke, 13 April 1675).

62 I am indebted to Judi Loach for this suggestion.

63 Fowler, Lawrence H. and Baer, Elizabeth, The Fowler Architectural Collection of the John Hopkins University (Baltimore, 1961), p. 98 Google Scholar.

64 Only one other print of Santa Maria della Pace existed by 1677, by Barrière, Dominique, in Martinelli, Fioravante, Roma ricerta nel suo sito, e nella scuola di tutti gli antiquarii (Rome, 1658), p. 179 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Professor Joseph Connors for this reference.

65 See ‘Hooke’s Posessions at his Death: a Hitherto Unknown Inventory’, in Robert Hooke: New Studies, ed. Hunter, Michael and Schaffer, Simon (Woodbridge, 1989), pp. 287-94Google Scholar (P. 294).

66 British Library, Add. MS 5238, fol. 65. This engraving is inscribed in ink: ‘P. Mariette, 1677.’

67 Warwickshire County Record Office, Feilding Papers, B2/1-3. The two façade designs are derived from engravings of church portals by Jean Le Pautre. See Préaud, , Inventaire du fonds français, XII, nos 2121, 2124 Google Scholar.

68 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 13 April 1673. See Downes, Kerry in Sir Christopher Wren (Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1982), p. 27 Google Scholar.

69 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 29 June 1675, 1 July 1675. On 5 July 1675 Dr William Balle (Ball) FRS ‘engaged to send for any books to Rome’ (The Diary of Robert Hooke).

70 Mauban, Jean Marot, pp. 62-64. Jacques Tarade might be the mysterious ‘Tarripan’ mentioned in Hooke’s list of prints of 10 June 1677. For the principal architectural engravings of St Peter’s available at this period, see Thoenes, Christof, La fabbrica di San Pietro nelle incisioni dal cinquecento all’ottocento (Milan, 2000)Google Scholar.

71 See Hyde, Ralph, The A to Z of Restoration London (Lympne Castle, Kent, 2002)Google Scholar.

72 For Martyn and Pitt, see Rostenberg, The Library of Robert Hooke, pp. 13-27.

73 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 11 January 1675, 8 October 1676.

74 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 22 September 1676. On 29 October 1673 Hooke was at ‘Pits, bought Leonardi da Vinci for 15sh’, which was presumably the copy of the Trattato (Paris, 1651) listed in the sale catalogue (The Diary of Robert Hooke; Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 7 (folio, lot 297)).

75 Rostenberg, The Library of Robert Hooke, pp. 62-64, 90.

76 Quoted in Plomer, Henry H., A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725 (Oxford, 1922), pp. 264-65Google Scholar.

77 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 4 May 1676. It is probably no coincidence that a copy of ‘Vitruve’ was purchased for Wren’s City Church Office in the very same month. This cost the comparable sum of 60s. (GL, MS 25543, fol. 11; Downes, Kerry in Sir Christopher Wren (Whitechapel Art Gallery), p. 32 Google Scholar).

78 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 16 March 1676.

79 For the Monument’s indebtedness to Trajan’s column, see More, John E., ‘The Monument or Sir Christopher Wren’s Roman Accent’, Art Bulletin, 80 (1998), pp. 498–523 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 8 December 1676, 18 February, 13 April, 21 May 1677. Crawley’s copies are presumably the competent drawings in BL, Add. MS 5238, fols 75, 76, 80. Further copies from Bartoli, possibly from the same hand, survive in BL, MS 15,505, fol. 31. For Crawley, see Inwood, Stephen, The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Strange and Inventive Life of Robert Hooke 1635-1703 (London, 2002), p. 255 Google Scholar.

81 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 54 (folio, lot 18). It is not recorded when this was purchased.

82 Bibliotecha Hookiana, Appendix to Dr. Hooke’s Catalogue, p. 2 (folio, lot 16).

83 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 5 July 1675.

84 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 3 July 1673, 13 December 1675.

85 Scott, Robert, Catalogus librorum ex variis europæ partibus advectorum (London, 1674), pp. 162-64Google Scholar.

86 Ibid., pp. 164,198-99.

87 Pitt, Moses, Catalogus librorum in omni facultate et lingua rariorum nuperimme in Anglia post novissimum bellum (London, 1674)Google Scholar. The Diary of Robert Hooke, 28 March 1674.

88 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 22 September 1676.

89 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 11 December 1675.

90 Rostenberg, Leona, English Publishers in the Graphic Arts 1599-1700 (New York, 1963), pp. 50–53 Google Scholar (p. 50). In 1676 Hooke ‘Saw Book of Painters at Thomsons, Bedford Street, for 8sh.’ (The Diary of Robert Hooke, 28 August 1676).

91 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 9 November 1674,17 August 1676.

92 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 5 December 1675,16 December 1676.

93 Rostenberg, English Publishers in the Graphic Arts, pp. 55-60; Harris, British Architectural Books and Writers, p. 560.

94 Bibliotecha Hookiana, p. 40 (folio, lot 113).

95 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 7 October 1675.

96 Philosophical Transactions, vol. 10, no. 112 (25 March 1675), pp. 279-82.

97 Philosophical Transactions, vol. 10, no. 112 (21 February 1675/76), pp. 549-50.

98 The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. Hall, A. Rupert and Hall, M. Boas, 13 vols (Madison and London, 1965-86), ix, pp. 597, 656-57Google Scholar; x, p. 253.

99 The Diary of Robert Hooke, pp. 160, 168,189, 247, 253, 305,310, 313, 346, 364,370,418,424,425. Most of these copies were supplied by Hooke’s physician, Dr Theodore Diodati, who was a regular visitor to the Continent. Bibliotecha Hookiana, pp. 34 (duodecimo, lot 115), 54 (quarto, lot 18).

100 Le journal des Sçavans: Huret: 2 March 1665 (1665, no. 1), pp. 102-05; Perrault 1673:17 December 1674 (1675, no. 1), pp. 1-6; Savot: 3 August 1676 (1676, no. 15), pp. 178-79; Felibien: 14 September 1676 (1676, no. 18), pp. 205-09; Fréart: 1 February 1677 (1677, no. 3), pp. 29-30; Perrault (1683): 26 July 1683 (1683, no. 19), pp. 217-21.

101 Le journal des Sçavans: Spon: 9 May 1678 (1678, no. 16), pp. 177-81; c. du Fresne: 29 July 1680 (1680, no. 18), pp. 205-10. An English translation of the latter review, omitting the plan, appeared in William Faithorne’s Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious, 29 May 1682, pp. 109-12.

102 For the intellectual context of these and other travel writings, see Loach, Judi, ‘Anglicanism in London, Gallicanism in Paris, Primitivism in Both’, in Plus ça Change: Architectural Interchange between France and Britain, Papers from the Annual Symposium of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1999, ed. Jackson, Neil (Nottingham, 2000), pp. 9–32 Google Scholar.

103 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 8-14 October 1676, 22 February 1677, 3 March 1677, 9 March 1677, 10 March 1677, 28 March 1677.

104 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 5 December 1677.

105 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 24 June 1678.

106 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 24 July, 31 July-10 August 1676.

107 Davies was employed at Montagu House from November 1675 and probably sent to France in connexion with the internal decoration of the house (The Diary of Robert Hooke, 13 November 1675). At Boughton House, where Davies was also employed, Montagu paid for craftsmen to be additionally trained (see Murdoch, Tessa, ‘The Patronage of the Montagus’, in Boughton House: the English Versailles, ed. Murdoch, Tessa (London, 1992), PP. 32–43 Google Scholar (P. 34)).

108 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 2 April 1677, 12 May 1677. Davies was again out of London in the spring of 1678: between 23 March and 21 April he is conspicuously absent from Hooke’s diary. On the latter date Hooke noted ‘Davys returnd’.

109 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 12 May 1677.

110 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 17 May 1677, 22 May 1677, 30 May 1677, 9 June 1677, 10 June 1677, 12 October 1677, 3 December 1677.

111 See Stoesser-Johnston, ‘Robert Hooke and Holland’, pp. 121-37, where Hooke’s dependence on European architecture is most fully demonstrated.

112 Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent persons: Volume 4, Architects, ed. Watkin, D. J. (London, 1972), pp. 1–43 Google Scholar.