JF Ptak Science Books 

“Photogenic Drawing” followed by “Photogenic Drawings”¹ The first paper gives an account (taken from the London Mechanical Magazine), occupying pp 263-4, of the Daguerre process; the second, pp 264-5, gives an account of the Fox Talbot method as it first appeared in the British Association/Athenaeum.

These I believe are among the earliest of U.S. journal references for  two of the earliest photographic processes—the Fox Talbot method was much different from the Daguerre though much less known and certainly underappreciated as it was arguably the superior.

• “This early period of photography cannot be passed over without mention of the name of Henry Fox Talbot of England He was a man of many sided scientific character and an independent investigator in the photographic field prior to Daguerre’s discovery and therefore not inspired by it to investigation. In 1839 January 31st he read a paper before the Royal Society entitled “Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing etc” embodying a practical process on paper based on the abandoned process of Wedgewood and Davy which he improved and also completed by fixing the pictures although imperfectly…”–, JFI, Dec 1899, vol 148, p 4 11.

Then, in the September issue of 1839 come the following three contributions: “Invention of Photogenic Drawings”, p.208, from Mechanic’s Magazine; “Light Drawn Pictures”, pp 208-9, Mechanic’s Magazine;“The Daguerrotype Explained”, pp 209-210 (“A.D.B.”, Alexander Dallas Bache).

And then, a month later in the November issue, comes a Daguerre: “Practical description of the Process called the Daguerreotype, which consists of the spontaneous reproductions of the images of natural objects, in the Camera Obscura…”

Phillippe Labbe (1607-1677), a contemporary of the savant’s savant, Athanasius Kircher, and who was himself a prodigious polymath, produced this fantastic piece of scholarship, the Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum…accedit bibliotheca nummaria.  He was a member of the Society of Jesus, like Kircher (which whom he also shared similar birth and aeath dates, Kircher’s being 1601-1680); and was born in the town of Borges, France, which gives him an almost invisible connection to one of the 20th century’s most imaginative/flexible writers in the great blind librarian of Argentina.  This book, published in Leipzig in 1682 as the second edition of the 1662 first,  is the earliest extant work of bibliography of bibliographies (it also has a very useful work on numismatics, as we can see from the last part of the title.)  Gathering the data necessary to produce this work was a prodigious undertaking–Labbe needed to have had access to fine libraries to assemble the data, then of course he needed the brain to handle all of the disparate and erudite areas of learning, and then be smart enough to organize it all.  This was an enormous accomplishment in 1682–with the stuff that Labbe had floating around in his brain and the reasonable aspect of disseminating it, Labbe would’ve been a National Treasure to whichever country he would call “home”. 

I haven’t seen the title page of this book for many years, and my memory of it had these three bibliophiles holding drinks in the air–but I’m wrong, unfortunately.  The scholar on the left is weighing something, the scholar o the right is pointing to a book, and I not exactly sure what scholar-middle is doing.  One thing for certain though is that these men are not drinking.  Somehow I’d’ve preferred a few rounds with all of that scholarly/scientific bric-a-brac strewn on the table, but it was not to be. 

Some of Labbe’s selected works include:

• Trirocinium Linguæ Græcæ etc. (1648)
• La Géographie royale (1646)
• De Byzantinæ historiæ scriptoribus, etc. (1648)
• Concordia sacræ et profanæ chronologiæ annorum 5691 ab orbe condito ad hunc Christi annum 1638 (1638)
• Bibliotheca antijanseniana (1654)
• Bibliotheca bibliothecarum (1664)
• Sancrosancti Oecumenici Tridentini Concilii . . . canones et decreta (1667)
• Sacrosancta concilia ad regiam editionem exacta