Antique Tools and Instruments from the Nessi Collection

This book looks at the manufacture of a whole range of functional objects from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century, before the production of such pieces became almost entirely industrialised. It includes tools and implements employed in sciences, crafts and trades, as well as in domestic and personal life, and explains the context that led craftsmen to fashion these pieces with such dexterity and attention to detail that the end-products can be considered true works of art.

Exceptional scientific instruments from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are strongly represented, focusing especially on Germany. There are detailed reproductions of astrolabes, topographical instruments, sundials and balances, often commissioned by princes and aristocrats for inclusion in their personal "cabinet of wonders."

In the field of medicine, the book features many examples of surgical instruments, which initially emerged to meet the pressing needs of army surgeons on the battlefield and then developed into a variety of highly specialized pieces. The examples of craftsmen’s tools, where functional considerations were clearly paramount, illustrate how their practical purpose was integrated with highly symbolic decoration and careful choice of materials.

In the home, the book looks at wrought-iron pieces used in the preparation of food at the hearth, which would often have played a central role in domestic life. There is also a section on the personal objects produced in France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to cater for the ever-increasing sophistication of urban society. This created a demand for leisure equipment, needlework tools, writing, smoking and personal grooming accessories, and the "travel kits" used by an ever more mobile population.

Luigi Nessi, a Swiss architect, in the middle of the 1970s developed a growing interest in "material culture" and began to collect the utensils and objects that illustrate the achivements of "Homo Faber", together with any documentation that casts light on these material aspects of culture and civilization. Tracing developments within numerous trades and professions, his collection now comprises a large number of objects and utensils. The collection has been exhibited in Milan (Sforza Castle Museum) and Basel (Museum der Kulturen).

Claudine Cartier is Head Curator at the Inspection générale des musées (the body which oversees French State Museums), with particular responsibility for industrial and craft museums. She has published many books on industrial heritage.

Alessandro Cesati, an architect and antiquarian, has been active in research and study in the field of the applied arts for many years, with a special interest in metal objects. He is the author of many books, articles and exhibition catalogues.

Marie-Véronique Clin is the Curator of the Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine in Paris. She has published a number of books that chart the history of the human body through the ages.

Peter Plaßmeyer is Director of the Clock and Watch Collection at the Dresden Institute of Mathematics and Physics. He has published various works on clocks and other scientific instruments in the 16th-18th century.

Richard J. Wattenmaker is director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art. He has studied European and American ironwork with a specialty in the development of wrought iron cooking and fireplace utensils.