- Water Torture
The Water Torture. Fac-simile of a Woodcut in J. Damhoudère's "Praxis Rerum Criminalium:" in 4to, Antwerp, 1556. In Paris, for a long time, the water torture was in use; this was the most easily borne, and the least dangerous. A person undergoing it was tied to a board which was supported horizontally on two trestles. By means of a horn, acting as a funnel, and whilst his nose was being pinched, so as to force him to swallow, they slowly poured four coquemars (about nine pints) of water into his mouth; this was for the ordinary torture. For the extraordinary, double that quantity was poured in. When the torture was ended, the victim was untied, "and taken to be warmed in the kitchen," says the old text. - Vielle
The woodcut represents a very beautiful vielle; French, of about 1550, with monograms of Henry II. This is at South Kensington. The contrivance of placing a string or two at the side of the finger-board is evidently very old, and was also gradually adopted on other instruments of the violin class of a somewhat later period than that of the vielle; for instance, on the lira di braccio of the Italians. It was likewise adopted on the lute, to obtain a fuller power in the bass; and hence arose the theorbo, the archlute, and other varieties of the old lute. - Venice in the Sixteenth Century
- venae dilatatae
- Vena profunda
- vena cumulata
- Tribunal of Kings Bailiff
Bailliage, or Tribunal of the King's Bailiff.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on Wood in the Work of Josse Damhoudere, "Praxis Rerum Civilium." (Antwerp, 1557, in 4to.). - Torture of the wheel
Demons applying the Torture of the Wheel.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Grand Kalendrier ou Compost des Bergers:" small folio, Troyes, Nicholas le Rouge, 1529. - Time-chart A.D. 800-A.D. 1500
Time-chart A.D. 800-A.D. 1500 - The Winegrower
In the sixteenth century, Liébault enumerated nineteen sorts of grapes, and Olivier de Serres twenty-four, amongst which, notwithstanding the eccentricities of the ancient names, we believe that we can trace the greater part of those plants which are now cultivated in France. For instance, it is known that the excellent vines of Thomery, near Fontainebleau, which yield in abundance the most beautiful table grape which art and care can produce, were already in use in the reign of Henry IV. - The Springboard
THe Spring-board Most of the bourgeois and the villagers played a variety of games of agility, many of which have descended to our times, and are still to be found at our schools and colleges. Wrestling, running races, the game of bars, high and wide jumping, leap-frog, blind-man's buff, games of ball of all sorts, gymnastics, and all exercises which strengthened the body or added to the suppleness of the limbs, were long in use among the youth of the nobility - The river Fisherman
The River Fisherman, designed and engraved, in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman. - The Poulterer
The Poulterer - The Pond Fisherman
The Pond Fisherman.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, folio, Basle, 1549. - The Miller
The Miller - The Manufacture of Oil
The Manufacture of Oil, drawn and engraved by J. Amman in the Sixteenth Century. - The Great Harry
Henry Grace à Dieu ("Henry, Thanks be to God"), also known as Great Harry, was an English carrack or "great ship" of the King's Fleet in the 16th century, and in her day the largest warship in the world. Contemporary with Mary Rose, Henry Grace à Dieu was even larger, and served as Henry VIII's flagship. This description was taken from Wikipedia as the book didn't describe the picture - The Globe Theatre
The first theatre was built in 1570. Thirty years after there were seven. The Queen had companies of children to play before her. They were the boys of the choirs of St. Paul's, Westminster, Whitehall, and Windsor. The actors called themselves the servants of some great lord. Lord Leicester, Lord Warwick, Lord Pembroke, Lord Howard, the Earl of Essex, and others all had their company of actors—not all at the same time. The principal Houses were those at Southwark, and especially at Bank Side, where there were three, including the famous Globe - The Embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover, 1520
(From the original painting at Hampton Court.) - The Butcher
The Butcher - The Brewer
The Brewer - The Baker
The Baker - Teaching the Spaniard 'The Honour of the Flag'
Philip of Spain, arriving in the Straits of Dover on his journey to England to espouse Mary, flaunts the flag of Spain without paying the customary salute. Lord Howard of Effingham, the English admiral, soon brings him to his senses by firing a round shot across his bows. - Tailor
Tailor - Sword maker
Sword maker - Swineherd
Swineherd - Steel Corset worn in Catherine's time.
The most extensive and extreme use of the corset occurred in the 16th century, during the reign of Catherine de Medici of France and Queen Elizabeth of England. With Catherine de Medici a thirteen-inch waist measurement was considered the standard of fashion, while a thick waist was an abomination. No lady could consider her figure of proper shape unless she could span her waist with her two hands. To produce this result a strong rigid corset was worn night and day until the waist was laced down to the required size. Then over this corset was placed the steel apparatus shown in the illustration on next page. This corset-cover reached from the hip to the throat, and produced a rigid figure over which the dress would fit with perfect smoothness. - Standard weight
Standard Weight in Brass of the Fish-market at Mans: Sign of the Syren (End of the Sixteenth Century). - St Marks Place
View of St. Mark's Place, Venice, Sixteenth Century, after Cesare Vecellio. - Spur maker
Spur Maker - Sir Philip Sidney
This is no insult to Sir Philip Sidney, but only to the rather exorbitant demands of the form he had chosen. His own sonnets vindicate him as a poet, and some of them, even Hazlitt owned, who did not like him, 'are sweet even to a sense of faintness, luscious as the woodbine, and graceful and luxurious like it.' - Sir Francis Drake, in his Forty-third Year
- Sign of the 'Running Horse'
Why the crowd resorted thus to tipple the horrible compound does not appear: one would rather drink the usual glucose and dilute sulphuric acid of modern times. The pictorial sign of the old house still proudly declares— “When Skelton wore the laurel crown My ale put all the alewives down.” To do that, you would think, it must needs have been both good and cheap. Certainly, if the portrait-sign of Elynor be anything like her, customers did not resort to the “Running Horse” to bask in her smiles, for she is represented as a very plain, not to say ugly, old lady with a predatory nose plentifully studded with warts. - Shooting rabbits with the crossbow
Joannes Stradanus, born at Bruges 1536, died at Florence 1605, a Flemish historical painter who delighted in portraying all kinds of sport, such as shooting, hunting, fishing and coursing, which he did with wonderful skill and in most realistic fashion. This picture is reduced from ' Venationes Ferarum,' a work consisting of 105 large plates of sporting scenes, dated 1578. The hunters carry stonebows, and the rabbits are being driven from their burrows by smoke and fire. Purse nets and stop nets may also be seen in use. - Shoe maker
Shoe maker - Ships of the Time of Henry VIII
Looking at the lofty hulls, the immense mainsails, and the nearness of the ports to the water-line, we can easily understand how a want of care wrecked the Mary Rose. The ship in the background on the right is apparently trying to reduce sail, and has had to lower her main-yard. Her mainsail is almost in the water, to the apparent danger of the ship. - Section of Frobisher's Map of the World
Section of Frobisher's map of the world, 1576. Copied from Hakluyt. It shows what the English explorer thought America was. - Sculptured Comb
Sculptured Comb, in Ivory, of the Sixteenth Century (Sauvageot Collection) - Scarification without cupping in Egypt
Scarification without cupping in Egypt in the 16th century. To obtain sufficient blood, 20 to 40 gashes were made in the legs and the patient was made to stand in a basin of warm water. (From Prosper Alpinus, Medicina Aegyptorum, Leyden, 1719. - Raffaelle
- Queen Elizabeth’s Travelling Coach
Queen Elizabeth travelled in a coach, either the one built by Walter Rippon or that brought by Boonen (who, by the way, was appointed her coachman), on some of her royal progresses through the kingdom. When she visited Warwick in 1572, at the request of the High Bailiff she “caused every part and side of the coach to be opened that all her subjects present might behold her, which most gladly they desired.” The vehicle which could thus be opened on “every part and side” is depicted incidentally in a work executed by Hoefnagel in 1582, which Markland believed to be probably the first engraved representation of an English coach. As will be seen from the reproduction here given, the body carried a roof or canopy on pillars, and the intervening spaces could be closed by means of curtains. - Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket Pistol
At Dover there is a culverine, presented to Queen Elizabeth, by the States General of Holland, and called Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket-pistol. It is 24 feet long, diameter of bore 4 1⁄2 inches, weight of shot 12lbs.; it was manufactured in 1544, and is mounted on an ornamented iron carriage made in 1827, at the Royal Carriage Department, Woolwich Arsenal. - Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth - Portrait of St. Francis Xavier, One of the Earliest Missionaries to Japan
In this city Pinto met, apparently for the first time, with Master Francis Xavier, general superior or provincial of the order of the Jesuits in India, in all parts of which occupied by the Portuguese he had already attained a high reputation for self-devotion, sanctity, and miraculous power; and who was then at Malacca, on his return to Goa, from a mission on which he had lately been to the Moluccas - Pillage
A Village pillaged by Soldiers.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in Hamelmann's "Oldenburgisches Chronicon." in folio, 1599. - Nutcracker
Nut-crackers, in Boxwood, Sixteenth Century (Collection of M. Achille Jubinal) - Nijmegen, Gelderland (dated 1544)
Nijmegen, Gelderland (dated 1544) - Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus - Movable iron cage
Movable Iron Cage.--From a Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, in folio, Basle, 1552. - Martin Luther
Very few religious-spirited men had the daring to break away or the effrontery to confess that they had broken away from all authoritative teaching, and that they were now relying entirely upon their own minds and consciences. That required a very high intellectual courage. The general drift of the common man in this period in Europe was to set up his new acquisition, the Bible, as a counter authority to the church. This was particularly the case with the great leader of German Protestantism, Martin Luther (1483-1546). - Marseilles
View and Plan of Marseilles and its Harbour, in the Sixteenth Century.--From a Copper-plate in the Collection of G. Bruin, in folio: "Théâtre des Citez du Monde." - Map showing the first settlements made on the Eastern coast of North America
Map showing the first settlements made on the Eastern coast of North America - Map of 1515
Map of 1515, showing what some geographers then supposed North America to be. This is one of the earliest maps on which the name America occurs. It will be notices that at that time it was confined to South America. - Lord Howard Attacking a Ship of the Spanish Armada
In this fruitless attempt to invade our shores ten thousand Spaniards gave up their lives. England lost but one ship and about a hundred men. - Lawyer
Lawyer.--From the "Danse des Morts" of Basle, engraved by Mérian: in 4to, Frankfort, 1596. - Lady of the Court of Catherine de Medicis
Costumes of the Ladies and Damsels of the Court of Catherine de Medicis. - Knife Handles in ivory
Knife-handles in Sculptured Ivory, Sixteenth Century (Collection of M. Becker, of Frankfort). - Kitchen
Interior of a Kitchen.--Fac-simile from a Woodcut in the "Calendarium Romanum" of J. Staéffler, folio, Tubingen, 1518. - Kepler
- Interior of a kitchen
Interior of a Kitchen of the Sixteenth Century. Fac-simile from a Woodcut in the "Calendarium Romanum" of Jean Staéffler, folio, Tubingen, 1518.