Description

A brass cylindrical surveyor’s cross with compass and sights signed “N. Blondeau f.”. Black leather case, red velvet-lined, with gold toolings.

The compass with the main winds in Italian (LEvante, MEridie, POnente, TRamontana).

The instrument has been recently acquired directly from the descendant of the Visconti family; it was found in the basement of the Villa in Cassinetta di Lugnagnano (MI) together with other coeval surveying instruments where they were from the age of their use.

Dimension: 21 cm high; diam. 7.3 cm

Very few instruments by Nicolas Blondeau are known.

Nicolas Blondeau worked in Milan in the last third of 17^th century, where he signed a sundial in 1683. Later, he moved to Naples where a sector dated 1694 is in the MHSO.

As an Huguenot, the Blondeau family was forced to leave France around the mid-17^th due to the persecution under the reign of Louis XIV who revoked the Edict of Nantes (1598).

Some of them emigrated in Germany, the Netherlands, England and Suisse where became also renowned clock-makers. Very few of them came to Italy. Their character and talent in the arts, sciences, and industry were such that they generally felt to have been a substantial loss to the French society and a corresponding gain to the communities and nations into which they settled.

Better known is Roch Blondeau who worked from 1650 to 1672 in Paris; he made sundials and surveying instruments.

A Baptiste Blondeau (“Ingégneur du Roi” in 1642) worked from 1630 to 1655.

A Pierre Blondeau (“Ingégneur du Roi” in 1642) signed a sector (Adler)

References

Webster Signature Database (ad vocem)

MHSOxford Inv.N. 49132 and 34134

Daumas M. p. 92, 110

Marcelin F. Dictionnaire des fabricants français d’instruments de mesure du XVe au XIXe siecle (ad vocem)

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ODDI’S BOOK IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE LOT