Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Plates are bright. Corners have some wear. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The treasure of Philip of Macedon father of Alexander the Great has revealed to us many small charming iron articles (Thessalonica Museum of Archaeology). This means that the art of ironworking goes back very far through the centuries datings also tend to recede through time while the horizon of the archaeologist becomes wider and wider through new excavations and discoveries. But the fittings which are of interest for us (lat- tices fan-windows gates balconies railings – therefore generally speaking grilles -) be- came fashionable later between the Xith and the Xilth centuries A.D. I am referring in fact to the fixtures used in housebuilding in order to have some kind of stable and relia- ble form of closing doors and windows while allowing a view and the passage of light and which consisted of small single pieces skilfully connected and linked together. We could even consider them as a real symbol of mankind because mankind too is formed by sim- ple elements and by other elements which the more complex and subtle they are the more they have been put to test by fire and anvil-elements which when united and har- monious represent a strong and imposing block. It is difficult to find examples going back to the Xith century (one of them in Italy. can be seen in Brescia and was the subject of a study by Corrado Ricci in 1929). However the art of ironmaking had already developed as miniatures and chronicles witness Dating back to the following century we have grilles with stanchions and the simple repetition of single elements obtained from hot-forged ingots – the only system capable of giving them the desired shape and hot welding with boiled metal. Scrolls a characteristic feature of these decorations in wrought iron are tightly wound and sometimes ter- minate in an eyelet. It is also possible to see on mouldings palmettes made of a bundle of small degrading rods framed between two large S-shaped rods all leading from a single ring. (SP)