PIERRE BELON DU MANS (PETRUS BELLINIUS CENOMANUS)
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Pierre Belon HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
1517
In about this year Pierre Belon was born near Le Mans (Sarthe) in France.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
Pierre Belon studied medicine at Paris. Pierre Belon became a physician. Dr. Pierre Belon became a pupil of the botanist Valerius Cordus (1515-1544) at Wittenberg. Dr. Pierre Belon traveled with Valerius Cordus in Germany. Dr. Pierre Belon returned from Germany to France and obtained the patronage of François de Tournon, who would equip and finance for him an extended journey of discovery.
Pierre Belon “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1546
Francis Xavier sailed from Malacca for the Spice Islands.
Dr. Pierre Belon began a journey through Egypt, Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia and Palestine. He would be gone until 1549. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1549
Dr. Pierre Belon returned to France from his extended journey through Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia and Palestine. He would in 1553 publish an illustrated account LES OBSERVATIONS DE PLUSIEURS SINGULARITEZ ET CHOSES MEMORABLES TROUVÉES EN GRÈCE, ASIE, JUDÉE, EGYPTE, ARABIE ET AUTRES PAYS ÉTRANGÈRS.
The Clement Adams (1519?-1587) map of 1549 Dawson, Samuel Edward: The voyages of the Cabots in 1497 and 1498, with an attempt to determine their landfall and to the identity of the island of St. John (in Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, XII, Section. ii (1894), 51-112. Deane, Charles: The voyages of the Cabots (in Justin Winsor (ed.): Narrative and critical history of America, Volume. III, London 1889; New York 1967) Hervé, R. & A Rossel: Mappamonde de Sebastian Cabot ... 1544 (Paris 1968). Pennington, L.E.: The Purchas Handbook (Hakluyt Society, London 1997, 2 Volumes). Tytler, Patrick Fraser: Historical view of the progress of discovery on the more northern coasts of America ... (London 1832; New York 1836) HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Clement Adams (1519? - 1587) was the author of the book “Nova Anglorum ad Moscovitas navigatio” (1554), which provided the earliest account of Chancellor and Willoughby’s voyages. Adams was also an engraver, and a tutor to the royal pages at Greenwich. He was born in Warwickshire and educated at Eton and Cambridge. An English translation of Adams’ book was provided by Hakluyt in his “Principal Navigations”, Volume. I (1598). The testimony of Richard Eden, as reproduced by Hakluyt, describes Adams as “that learned young man ... schoolemaster to the Queenes henshmen”. (Henshman = an attendant, or squire). Samuel Purchas, in his supplement to “A Letter of Richard Chancellor ..”, repeated an abbreviated account of Chancellor’s voyage originally given in Adams’ book. It is said to be “taken by Clement Adams ... from the mouth of Richard Chancellor”. Purchas says “I have this booke of Clement Adams, in Latine, written in a very elegant hand ... (as I thinke) the very original”. Purchas also reports that Clement Adams was the engraver of a 1549 wall map by Sebastian Cabot, a fact confirmed by other sources. This map portrayed the coast of America, crediting John Cabot (not Sebastian) with its discovery. According to Purchas, Clement’s map hung in “His Majesties Gallerie” at Whitehall. It was presumably destroyed in the fire which consumed the Palace of Whitehall in 1698. The inscription on the map, reproduced by Hakluyt, says “In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot, a Venetian, and his son, Sebastian, discovered that country, which no one before his time had ventured to approach, on the 24th of June, about five o’clock in the morning. He called the land Terra Primum Visa, because, as I conjecture, this was the place that first met his eyes in looking from the sea. On the contrary, the island which lies opposite the land he called the Island of St. John, -- as I suppose, because it was discovered on the festival of St. John the Baptist. The inhabitants wear beasts’ skins, and the intestines of animals for clothing, esteeming them as highly as we do our most precious garments. In war their weapons are the bow and arrow, spears, darts, slings, and wooden clubs. The country is sterile and uncultivated, producing no fruit from which circumstance it happens that it is crowded with white bears, and stags of an unusual height and size. It yields plenty of fish, and these very large; such as seals and salmon: there are soles also above an ell in length; but especially great abundance of that kind of fish called in the vulgar tongue, Baccalaos. In the same island also, breed hawks, so black in their color that they wonderfully resemble ravens; besides, there are partridges, and eagles of dark plumage.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1551
A landmark in text modularization: the first division of Biblical materials into verses, by Robert Estienne I in Geneva. HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
In Zürich, Conrad Gesner began issuing the five volumes of his HISTORIAE ANIMALIUM (quadrupeds, birds, fishes), which would not be complete until 1558.
Dr. Pierre Belon’s L’HISTOIRE NATURELLE DES ÉSTRANGES POISSONS MARINS, AVEC LA VRAIE PEINCTVRE & HDT WHAT? INDEX
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DESCRIPTION DU DAULPHIN, & DE PLUSIEURS AUTRES DE SON ESPECE (Paris: Chaudiere). HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
1553
Martin Frobisher went on a voyage to the Guinea coast of Africa.
Dr. Pierre Belon published an illustrated account LES OBSERVATIONS DE PLVSIEVRS SINGVLARITEZ ET CHOSES MEMORABLES, TROUUÉES EN GRÈCE, ASIE, JUDÉE, EGYPTE, ARABIE, & AUTRES PAYS ESTRANGES, REDIGÉES EN TROIS LIURES (Paris: Corrozet) on the journey through Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia and Palestine that he HDT WHAT? INDEX
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had made 1546-1549. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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In this year he also published DE AQUATILIBUS, LIBRI DUO CUM EICONIBUS AD VIUAM IPSORUM EFFIGIEM, QUOAD EIUS FIERI POTUIT, EXPRESSIS. AD AMPLISSIMUM CARDINALEM CASTILLIONÆUM (Parisiis: Stephanus). HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
1554
Martin Frobisher went on another voyage to the Guinea coast of Africa.
Dr. Pierre Belon published a 2d edition of his 1553 account LES OBSERVATIONS DE PLVSIEVRS SINGVLARITEZ & CHOSES MÉMORABLES, TROUUÉES EN GRECE, ASIE, IUDÉE, EGYPTE, ARABIE, & AUTRES PAYS ESTRANGES, REDIGÉES EN TROIS LIURES. REUEUZ DE NOUUEAU & AUGMENTEZ DE FIGURES. LE CATALOGUE CONTENANT LES PLUS NOTABL....
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Pierre Belon HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
1555
Dr. Pierre Belon’s L’HISTOIRE DE LA NATVRE DES OYSEAVX, AVEC LEVRS DESCRIPTIONS; & NAÏFS PORTRAICTS RETIREZ DV NATVREL: ESCRITE EN SEPT LIVRES (Paris: Corrozet).
Henry Thoreau would check out this volume from the Harvard Library on February 6, 1860, and make extracts in his 2d Commonplace Book. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Here, from that volume, is a comparison of the skeleton of a bird with a human skeleton: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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During this year Dr. Belon also published a revised edition of his 1553 LES OBSERVATIONS DE PLUSIEURS SINGULARITEZ ET CHOSES MEMORABLES, TROUVÉES EN GRÈCE, ASIE, JUDÉE, EGYPTE, ARABIE, & AUTRES PAYS ESTRANGES, REDIGÉES EN TROIS LIURES (Anvers: Plantin), plus a new edition of his 1551 treatise on the fishes, LA NATURE ET DIUERSITÉ DES POISSONS, AUEC LEURS POURTRAICTS, REPRESENTEZ AU PLUS PRES DU NATUREL (Paris: Estienne). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
1557
Dr. Pierre Belon’s PORTRAITS D’OYSEAVX, ANIMAVX, SERPENS, HERBES, ARBRES, HOMMES ET FEMMES D’ARABIE & EGYPTE. LE TOUT ENRICHY DE QUATRAINS POUR PLUS FACILE COGNOISSANCE DES OYSEAUX, & AUTRES HDT WHAT? INDEX
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PORTRAITS (Paris: Cavellat). HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
1564
April: One evening while making his way through the Bois de Boulogne near Paris, Dr. Pierre Belon, although he was being highly favored both by Henry II and by Charles IX, was assassinated. HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
1860
February 6, Monday: Henry Thoreau was being written to by the conspirator and publisher James Redpath, who was
presumably in New-York, passing along a message that was to be handed surreptitiously to Franklin Benjamin Sanborn in Concord. Redpath was keeping his address secret so that if Thoreau were subpoenaed by the congressional committee, he would be able to testify that he truly did not know. Redpath had directed the printers to give him proofs of Thoreau’s lecture “A Plea for Captain John Brown” and his “Remarks at Concord on the Day of the Execution of John Brown,” and would check their typesetting before ECHOES OF HARPER’S FERRY got printed. (The “Private Life” to which the letter makes reference was another book to go through the presses during this year, THE PUBLIC LIFE OF CAPT. JOHN BROWN: WITH AN AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, a book which Redpath was dedicating to Wendell Phillips, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry D. Thoreau): THE PUBLIC LIFE OF BROWN
Febry 6, 1860 Henry D Thoreau
Dear Sir— If you do not desire to know my address, (which you had better not know if you have any prospect of being summoned to Washington) please hand the enclose knot to F.B.S. who, per- haps, may wish to see me to consult as to our future course. I have been regularly summoned, but have resolutely refused to obey the summons; & am in the country, now, to have quiet until I shall complete the forth coming Volume. I directed your Lecture to be sent to you for correction; which—I am told—has been done. Can you furnish me with an a/c of the B. of B.J? I was very conscious of the defects of the a/c I copied; but as I recollect very little about the B, I cd not undertake HDT WHAT? INDEX
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to describe it from my own resources. I shall however, yet obtain the testimony of the eye witnesses; as I have all their names (the “Orderly Book” that you allude to) & will either see or write to every man who was present, as soon as I can get their addresses, or leave Mass.
Page 2 for K. Terrtory I shall probably visit the ground in the Spring. For the Private Life I have already a number of very Interesting Letters from Kansas men,—just such plain, matter of fact statements as you are greedy for, & which, better than any rhetorical estimates of John Brown’s character or career, exhibit to the intelligent reader the Spirit & life of the old Warrior. The very numerous faults of language (there have been very few of facts) & the im- perfect estimates of character which disfigure my Book warn me—& I will take heed the hint—to be more time in fixing another original volume. As for my forth coming Book, as it is an Edited volume only, I have nothing to fear in that a/c. I have not even yet attempted to arrange my voluminous Newspaper Materials, & do not see that I shall be able to commence it for some to come weeks yet. This is my apology or reason rather for neglecting (in appear ance) my promise with reference to Miss Thoreau’s Scrap Book. I find that the extracts that
Page 3 have made in my Book inttr for yr Lecture were incorrectly reported. Do you desire that they shall be altered? If so, please return the volume I sent HDT WHAT? INDEX
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you properly marked; & I will return you as many Vols as you desire with the latest corrections. The 33d thousand has been printed & contains many corrections not in the Edition I sent you. The prospect is that it will reach over 50000 at least. I think it will do good among the masses; that is all I tried to do—for the educated have teachers enough; & over them I do not aspire to have influence. Remember me to Mrs Thoreau & thank her, in my own name & in behalf of my Wife, also—for her kind invitation; which we shall, as soon as possible, accept. Very trly Yours, Jas Redpath
February 6. To Cambridge. A rainy day. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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(While Thoreau was in Cambridge, the records of the Harvard Library indicate that he checked out Claudius Ælianus’s 5th-Century collection of miscellaneous anecdotes SOPHISTAE VARIAE HISTORIAE LIBRI XIV in a 1713 edition, the Reverend Edward Topsell’s THE HISTORY OF FOUR-FOOTED BEASTS AND SERPENTS, and Dr. Pierre Belon’s L’HISTOIRE DE LA NATVRE DES OYSEAUX AVEC LEVRS DESCRIPTIONS; & NAÏFS PORTRAICTS RETIREZ DU NATUREL: ESCRIT EN SEPT LIVRES. He would make extracts from the book on birds by Dr. Belon in his 2d Commonplace Book.)
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Pierre Belon HDT WHAT? INDEX
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: May 20, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
PIERRE BELON PIERRE BELON
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with
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