PANCIROLI, Guido

Later edition of this very popular work on modern inventions, first published in Amberg between 1599 and 1602. It was first written in Italian by the jurist and antiquarian Guido Panciroli (1523-99) at the commission of his patron, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, and circulated in manuscript before it was translated into Latin with commentaries by Heinrich Salmuth for the publication of 1599-1602, whose edition this is.

Divided into two sections, the work in the first focuses on the memorable and ‘lost’ achievements of the ancient Romans, and in the second, which opens with Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of America in 1492, on recent inventions and those things that were unknown to the ancients, which include porcelain (a long section), artillery, alchemy, clocks, and printing and typography. The attractive frontispiece, which also includes a vignette of a printer’s shop, reflects this division of the Old and New worlds, with its depiction of ancient Roman ruins on one side and Indigenous Americans on the other. Much of the force of the work in fact comes from the long commentaries by Salmuth, including a voluminous discussion of the New World and its indigenous peoples, guaiacum and other native plants, their medical uses, etc. This is part of a curious attempt to frame the various circumnavigations of the late fifteenth century by Columbus, Magellan, etc., in terms of ancient colonisations of less developed peoples. Indeed, Salmuth opens by discussing the Spanish justification for war with the Amerindians on the basis that they were infidels, Salmuth comparing this with Roman wars against ‘barbarians.’ It is into this context that the discussion of typography and printing in the second part falls. Salmuth adds a long commentary exploring Panciroli’s claims that Gutenberg’s invention had been derived from Chinese printing practises conveyed to the Germans, which Salmuth considers as a common fact of history, i.e. that practices and technologies can exist in one society for hundreds of years before their discovery by another. For the Amerindians, however, all he can say is that they had syphilis for a thousand years before it came to Europe.

The section on ancient knowledge describes modern Italian libraries such as the Vatican in Rome, the Medici Library in Florence and the Venetian library of St. Mark’s, as well as various monastic libraries, but also describing the burning of the great libraries of Alexandria and Constantinople. This first section is a rich and compendious survey of ancient life, chiefly Roman, including clothing, food and eating, warfare, measurements, timekeeping, funeral rites, games, etc. There are sections on ancient architectural monuments including stadia, baths, obelisks, triumphal arches, etc., the Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza, and descriptions of ancient building materials including marble. Panciroli also explores Roman legal practice, for example inheritance law including gifts of money to women and specifically to wives, which was regulated to avoid the secret or illegal transfer of property. He also describes the punishment of sending criminals to work for life in the mines. Other ancient inventions described include music and wine.