Friends with an old book: Argument
V Columnae by Hans Blum
The content “V Columnae by Hans Blum printed in 1596 is still today among interesting and important approaches for architects. The Latin word “Columnae” is translated into German as “column”. The letter “V” stands for the Roman numeral five. Thus, one can interpret that the book is about architectural building elements. The five stands for the number of different columns that are presented. Thus, the work also consists of five chapters, which are arranged in Roman numerals and the columns presented and also analyzed.
To each text one finds a drawing. The representations are very exact. With hatching and shading, the images gain depth. They help the reader to better understand the text and have an idea of what the described architectural structure looks like.
The book does not have a noticeable thickness, however it is very large in size. The number five in the title as a chapter template is not very much compared to the average of other literatures. Also, the author Hans Blum has used thinner paper. Most of the work is filled with drawings and illustrations. Since these are very detailed, the author needed a lot of space to show them so that the reader can see them easily. In order to view the drawings in their entirety, some pages can be opened horizontally in the middle. The binding is closed with two fine ribbons.
The master Hans Blum lived from 1527 to 1562. Besides the famous book “V Columnae”, the artistic description of the use of the five columns, he also wrote a work called “Architctura antiqua”. It deals with the true and actual counterfactuals of several ancient buildings.
21-608-915
Gina Bollinger
The first book I found „book V columnae“ was published in the same year, 1596, as Lorenzo Sirigatti’s „La pratica di prospettiva“. This is how I first found it. I then noticed that it has many aesthetic similarities. The friend of this book wrote: „The book does not have a noticeable thickness, however it is very large in size“, which is exactly the same proportion mine has. I then looked at the pictures this person has uploaded on the blog and realized that it is also very different (e.g. My book has a leather book cover while the other is simply bundled together), but the format and the idea of the amount of space given with each page is the same.
„To each text one finds a drawing. The representations are very exact.“ Again not everything of this sentence matches my book. „To each text one finds a drawing“ is not true for my book, as it almost only consists of drawings. But the representations are very exact. Sirigatti puts a lot of thought into each drawing, as he entirely relies on them to express what he wants to say.
„Most of the work is filled with drawings and illustrations. Since these are very detailed, the author needed a lot of space to show them so that the reader can see them easily.“ Thus, the structure of our books as well as the aesthetics and the thoughts behind the drawings are the same.
21-941-554
I came across your book through the words “illustrations show columns” as my book is filled with illustrations and most of them show columns. This also seems to be the case in your book. As you wrote there are many illustrations and a lot of them show very precise illustrations of columns.
However not only the content is alike, also the physical attributes. Your books is large in size mine as well. Nevertheless, a physical difference is the thickness. Mine is a rather thick book and yours not as much.
Another difference is the year of publication. Mine was written about 200 years later.
The name of my book: Instituzione pratica dell’ architettura civile per la decorazione de’ pubblici, e privati edifice.
Connections_47 #21-925-003 #47
I have found some similarities between our books as I searched for the keyword column in the blog‘s search engine. In your book columns like the Trajan column which my book (Colona Traiana eretta dal Senato) mostly is about are illustrated, described and dealt with. I find their detailed illustration very similar to mine. My book, unlike yours, consists only of illustrations and contains almost no text. It also doesn‘t have a noticeable thickness as yours. My book is very large in size too, as this allows a more detailed quality of the drawings. And the Trajan’s Column in my book can also be unfolded horizontally on an illustration, like several in your book.