Villard’’s Legacy: Studies in Medieval Technology, Science and Art in Memory of Jean Gimpel

Villard’s Legacy is a volume in memory of the celebrated iconoclastic historian, Jean Gimpel. AVISTA was Gimpel’s brainchild, and the contributions here reflect his concern to elucidate the interactions of technology, science and art within medieval culture. The first papers offer new interpretations of aspects of Villard de Honnecourt’s portfolio, which Gimpel rightly recognized and promoted as a unique and precious record of pre-modern technology and culture. This thirteenth-century manuscript is now known to a wider public as the earliest testimony left by a master builder in Gothic Europe. Of particular significance, a Compagnon du Devoir initiated in the same oral tradition as Villard opens the door to interpreting these remarkable drawings. Following studies address the construction of English and French Gothic churches, the technological culture of the medieval world, and the sciences of measure and their cultural expression.