Editing Villard de Honnecourt (section)

== Sketchbook ==
The "sketchbook" or "manual" of Villard de Honnecourt (more correctly, an album or portfolio) dates to about c.1225-1235. It was discovered in the mid-19th century and is presently housed in the [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]] (BnF), [[Paris]], under the shelfmark MS Fr 19093. It consists of 33 [[parchment]] sheets measuring on average 235x155 mm, or 9.25 x 6.1 inches.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Bugslag|first=James|date=Oct–Dec 2001|title=contrefais al vif: nature, ideas and the lion drawings of Villard de Honnecourt.|journal=Word & Image |volume=17 |issue=4|pages=360–378|doi=10.1080/02666286.2001.10435726|s2cid=170295576}}</ref> The manuscript is not complete and its original extent cannot be determined. Because the drawings and captions are oriented in many different directions, the album appears to have been assembled in an ad hoc fashion, as if the individual sheets were not originally intended to be bound together into book form. It is unclear whether it was Villard himself or a later party who assembled and bound the leaves into a book.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schlink|first=Wilhelm|date=1999|editor-last=Joubert|editor-first=Fabienne|title=War Villard de Honnecourt Analphabet?|journal=Pierre, Lumière, Couleur: études d'Histoire de l'Art du Moyen Age en l'Honneur d'Anne Prache|location=Paris|pages=213–222}}</ref>

The album contains about 250 [[drawing]]s. These include architectural designs ([[architectural plan|plan]]s, elevations, and details, often of identifiable buildings), a great variety of human and animal subjects, ensembles of religious and secular figures perhaps derived from or intended as sculptural groups, [[ecclesiastical]] objects, mechanical devices (including a [[perpetual-motion machine]]), engineering constructions such as lifting devices and a water-driven saw, a number of [[automata]], designs for war engines such as a [[trebuchet]], and many other subjects. Many drawings are accompanied by annotations and labels.

The original purpose of the album is debatable. Originally it was thought to have served as a kind of training manual for practicing architects. This is rejected by some current researchers who think Villard's drawings seem ill-suited to such a purpose, though it can also be argued that the drawings are deliberately simplistic and abstracted to serve as coded mnemonic devices for architects who were initiated into the relevant oral tradition.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Beffeyte|first=Renaud.|year=2004|title=The Oral Tradition and Villard de Honnecourt.|journal=Villard's Legacy: Studies in Medieval Technology, Science, and Art in Memory of Jean Gimpel, ed. Marie-Thérèse Zenner|publisher=Ashgate|location=Aldershot|pages=93–117}}</ref>

=== Facsimiles ===
Several printed facsimiles of the album have appeared.
* (1859) Parker, J.H. and J. ''Facsimile of the Sketch-book of Wilars de Honnecourt, an Architect of the Thirteenth Century.'' London, 1859. - See{{harv|Lassus |Quicherat |Willis |1859 }}.
* (1935) Hahnloser, Hans R. ''Villard de Honnecourt. Kritische Gesamtausgabe des Bauhüttenbuches ms. fr. 19093 der Pariser Nationalbibliothek (2nd rev. ed.).'' Graz, 1972.
* (1959) Bowie, Theodore. ''The Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt.'' Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1959.
* (1986). [[Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain]], et al. ''Carnet de Villard de Honnecourt.'' Paris, 1986.
* (2006) ''The Medieval Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt.'' Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006. (This publication contains the plates from Parker's 1859 edition accompanied by the introduction and captions from Bowie's 1959 edition.)
* (2009) Barnes, Carl F., Jr. ''The portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr 19093): a new critical edition and color facsimile.'' Farnham; Burlington: Ashgate, 2009.