Brasil.

I leave for Brazil (S.P. and Rio) today and will be there until the end of the month. While traveling I plan to use this blog as a clearinghouse for the interesting history-related things I find there, and for the occasional photo I take with my friend's fancy DSLR camera.

Inspired by my impending visit, I present some color illustrations from Jean-Baptiste Debret's famous and extremely out of print Voyage Pittoresque et Historique au Brésil (1834-39).

 "Valley of Serra do Mar (mountain chain near the sea)"

 "Family of a Camacan chief preparing for a feast."

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"Mummy of a Chief of Coroados" 

"Black slaves of different nations."

"Black hunters returning to town (left); the return of the slaves of a naturalist (right)."

For more on these images see this 2006 BibliOdyssey post on the Voyage Pictoresque, and for a complete, searchable database of all the images, see the New York Public Library's excellent Digital Gallery. 

Finally, here's a link to one of my favorite bands, Os Mutantes, then still teenagers, backing up Gilberto Gil and his song 'Domingo no Parque' on national television, circa 1966. Its a wonderful live performance -- highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Brazilian music, or just music in general.

Um abraço!

Animals in Pisanello

Looking at the paintings of the early Italian Renaissance painter Pisanello just now, I was struck by how wonderfully delicate and accurate his paintings of animals are. If he had lived in a different time or created these images in a different context (one of scientific learning rather than courtly patronage) I'm convinced that Pisanello would have been a famous naturalist. Here are a few cropped images I've made, deriving primarily from his lovely paintings The Vision of Saint Eustace (c. 1438) and Portrait of a Princess of the House of Este (c. 1440s?).

And finally, Pisanello's only surviving sculpted piece, a medal depicting "Innocence and a Unicorn in a Moonlit Landscape."