The Making and Knowing Project – Reconstructing the sixteenth-century workshop of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 at Columbia University

The Manuscript

BnF Ms. Fr. 640 resembles most closely “books of secrets” that began circulating in the Middle Ages and then were printed in large numbers from the last decades of the fifteenth century.

Laboratory Seminars

Hands-on research into, and reconstruction of, the materials and techniques described in the manuscript is being carried out through seminars held in a laboratory at Columbia University, led by Seth Low Professor of History, Pamela Smith.

Paleography Workshops

Professor Marc Smith, Professeur de paléographie medievale et moderne, Ecole des chartes, Paris, will lead workshops at Columbia University for advanced graduate students that will assist in revising and refining the existing transcription and translation of the complete manuscript

Introduction to the Project

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT: In the last decades of the sixteenth century, an anonymous French-speaking craftsperson took the unusual step of setting down on paper his techniques for a number of processes that we would now classify as part of the fine arts, of craft, and of technology. The processes included drawing-instruction, pigment-making, metal-coloring, counterfeit gem production, life-casting in metal, cannon-casting, tree-grafting, land-surveying, a practice of taxidermy to manufacture monstrous composite animals (kittens and bats), making paper mâché masks, and much more.

Working Groups

WORKING GROUPS: The three working groups include Metals and Metalworking; Painting and Pigments; and Natural History and Mechanics (final participant group is still being composed) and will be comprised of scholars and technical experts organized according to these different topics contained in the manuscript.

Progress to Date

PROGRESS TO DATE: See the latest of what we have been up to in the laboratory and our paleography workshops. After a successful iteration of our summer paleography seminar, we have been working on the reconstruction of 16th-century sandcasting methods.