Here follows a short note on an engraving titled “SACCHARVM” from the volume Nova Reperta. What is of interest to those interested in sugar is the plate shows how sugarcane was processed in circa 1600.
Nova Reperta, (New inventions and discoveries of modern times), offers a
series of engravings based on drawings by the Flemish artist and draftsman Jan
or Johannes Stradanus (Jan van der Straet or Straeten; also Giovanni Stradano)
(1523-1605). Born in Bruges, Stradanus
spent the majority of his adult life in Italy at the Medici Court. Beginning in
the 1570s, Stradanus created drawings intended for engravings. These drawings
were engraved, published, and distributed by a number of Antwerp publishers. The
engravings of Nova Reperta cover twenty topics ranging from the discovery of America by
Amerigo Vespucci. Other plates show the manufacture and invention of items
ranging from compasses, gunpowder, printing, clockworks, glasses, mills, silk
production, distillation, olive oil, and sugar.
According to
the Harvard
Magazine, “For most
inventions, the Nova reperta offered a compressed view of each step in
the production process within a unified and densely populated pictorial space,
according to Susan Dackerman’s catalog for Prints and the Pursuit of
Knowledge in Early Modern Europe.” [http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/10/inventions-in-early-modern-europe
]
The British
Museum describes plate 13 as:
“Description:
Men chopping down
sugar cane stems seen at centre; to right, a table with rows of sugar loaves;
behind, large stoves with boiling syrup and men operating a stonemill; outside,
seen from arches, men in a sugar plantation.
Engraving.”
And “Plated
numbered 13. Lettered in margin, below image, with the title and two sentences
in Latin: 'Qua saccharum paretur arte, plurimis', 'Pictura, quam vides, docebit
te modis'. On image, bottom: 'Ion.Stradanus Invent.' and 'Phls. Galle excud.'.”
It was bequeathed to the Museum by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753. http://tinyurl.com/kve2f5n
The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns the Antwerp
issued collection of Nova Reperta and dates it as 1600.
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/659656
