Skip to main content

Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Menu Search

Category: Early Printed Books

Posted on

Loose Book Illustrations in the Fagel Map Portfolios

by Emily Monty

Dr Emily Monty was the Fagel Collection Visiting Research Fellow in autumn 2022. She was hosted by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute at Trinity College Dublin. You can view a conversation between Emily and Ann-Marie Hansen, Project Manager of Unlocking the Fagel Collection here.

The Fagel Collection holds important material history for the study of publishing and collecting in the Dutch Republic of the eighteenth-century. The map portfolios alone contain over 1600 sheets and represent an extraordinary collection of rare and unusually well-preserved materials. Such collections of loose print and manuscript images in their original portfolios rarely survive intact, making the Fagel examples all the more important from the perspective of material and cultural history.

During a three-month Visiting Research Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), I came across a series of illustrations for an eighteenth-century travel narrative of the Caribbean in Portfolio XXII. These precious fragments of a larger illustration project reveal material evidence about practices in book publishing and collecting in The Hague, and give insight into the other discoveries that are waiting to be made as scholars continue to study the portfolio prints and related books held in the Fagel collection. In the following blog post, I describe my research methods and conclusions in hopes of promoting future research on the contents of these portfolios.

Continue reading “Loose Book Illustrations in the Fagel Map Portfolios”
Posted on

‘The most lamentable burning of the cittie of Corke’: a view on Irish history from a Dutch Collection

On the morning of 31st May 1622, exactly four hundred years ago, a terrible fire struck Cork city. It was sparked by an early summer thunderstorm. Many of the tightly packed dwellings within the city walls were built of timber or clay and had thatched roofs, and when lightning struck they quickly went up in flames. Between 11 o’clock and noon the fire tore through all parts of the city, leaving a trail of devastation.

One of the reasons we know about this fire is because it was the subject of a news pamphlet, A relation of the most lamentable burning of the cittie of Corke, in the west of Ireland, in the province of Monster, by thunder and lightning, which was printed in London on 20th June, barely three weeks later. It is a scarce work, with only three copies recorded in the English Short Title Catalogue. But a Dutch translation was printed in The Hague by Aert Meuris in 1622, and this translation is held in the Library of Trinity College Dublin among the 5,200 pamphlets in the Fagel Collection.

Continue reading “‘The most lamentable burning of the cittie of Corke’: a view on Irish history from a Dutch Collection”
Posted on

Farcical Fountains in the Fagel collection

Dr Maria Elisa Navarro Morales is a professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. She and her students have this year been looking at the architecture titles in the Fagel Collection, although for obvious reasons they have not been able to see them in person. The students submitted blogposts, three of which will be published here. Although they included bibliographies in their essays, for brevity we have omitted them. This post is by Olivia Bayne.

*SPLASH* without warning, followed by a roar of shrieks and laughter.  There you were, innocently admiring the garden view from a gallery window when, suddenly, some strange figure hidden in the foliage threw a bucket of water in your face.  Equal parts damp and mortified, you scurry out of the room; away from potential further drenching, away from the laughter of other guests soon to be met with similar ironic fates. Down the hall you come across a mirror.  Stopping to rearrange your hair and wipe the water from your brow, you straighten up, smile, and *poof* another figure, this time hidden in the rafters, has emptied a sack of flour atop your head.  You are now wettened and whitened – just in time for dinner.  Your host must be a madman; surely this is nothing more than a madhouse.

Fig. 1: Guests run away under a cloak from surprise water jets. Giovanni Battista Falda, Le fontane di roma, Rome, 1691. Shelfmark: Fag. I.I.27 no.3, plate 10.
Continue reading “Farcical Fountains in the Fagel collection”
Posted on

Ephemeral Architecture Eternalised in Print:

The Documentation of the Funeral Procession for Archduke Albert VII of Austria, 1622

Dr Maria Elisa Navarro Morales is a professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. She and her students have been looking this year at the architecture titles in the Fagel Collection, although for obvious reasons they have not been able to see them in person. The students submitted blogposts, three of which will be published here. Although they included bibliographies and footnotes in their essays, for brevity we have omitted them. This post is by Zoe Cooke.

The Pompa Funebris Alberti is a book that commemorates the funeral of Archduke Albert VII of Austria which took place in Brussels on March 12, 1622. A copy of the illustrated volume resides in the expansive Fagel collection at the library of Trinity College Dublin and it includes fifty-four plates detailing all the figures who took part in the funeral procession and the purpose-built, monumental, ephemeral architecture that was designed for it by artist and court architect, Jacob Franquart. The volume provides invaluable insight into the function of ephemeral architecture in the orchestration of courtly ceremonies in the early modern period in Europe.

Fig.1. Fag.I.1.60: Jacob Franquart. Pompa funebris optimi potentissimiq[ue] principis Alberti Pii, Archiducis Austriae, ducis Burg. Bra. &c., Brussels, 1623. Title page
Continue reading “Ephemeral Architecture Eternalised in Print:”
Posted on

The Fagel French Garden Connection

Dr Maria Elisa Navarro Morales is a professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. She and her students have this year been looking at the architecture titles in the Fagel Collection, although for obvious reasons they have not been able to see them in person. The students submitted blogposts, three of which will be published here. Although they included bibliographies and footnotes in their essays, for brevity we have omitted them. This post, by Niamh Flood, refers to the Fagel House, which is discussed on the first Fagel video.

There is an inconspicuous volume in the Fagel Library, unremarkable in appearance and at less than twenty pages, so slight as to be almost overlooked in this vast collection: Hardouin-Mansart, Jules, and Michel Hardouin (engraver), Book of all the Profiles and Elevations Plans both in Perspective and Geometric of Chateau de Clagny. Paris: Cossin, 1680. Shelfmark Fag. I.1.72.

Plate 1: Fagel I.1.72 Hardouin-Mansart, Jules, and Michel Hardouin (engraver), Book Of All The Profiles And Elevations Plans Both In Perspective And Geometric Of Chasteau De Clagny. Paris: Cossin, 1680
Continue reading “The Fagel French Garden Connection”