Boulengier Louis
Contenu
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Nom
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Boulengier Louis
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Date de naissance
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late 15th century
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Date de mort
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c. 1546
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Lieu de mort
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Albi
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Couverture temporelle
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1/2 16th century
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Biographie
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Possibly native to Forez,1 Louis Boulengier was not an instrument-maker as such but an humanist mathematician and cosmographer. Nothing is known of his early life but by 1506/7 he appears as a magistrate in Albi. In 1524 he was living in the wealthy area of La Ganella probably on what is now the Quai Choiseul, close to the episcopal palace inhabited successively by members of the family of his patrons the Robertet. Boulengier thus belonged to the élite of Albian society. He is known for an early essay in political arithmetic, Description de la Quarte Galicanne (Lyon 1535 but written before 1514), and a re-edition of the cosmography of Martin Waldseemüller which he ascribed to himself.2 In addition it was he who underwrote the printing costs for the Equatorii celestis motus expositio by Guillermu Egidii de Wisselrerc (Lyon 1511).3
Boulengier is included here because he published at least two astronomical charts and a set of globe gores.4 These, although found bound into one copy of his Cosmographia, are independent of this work though doubtless intended to complement it. That the gores were issued mounted as a small terrestrial globe of 11cm diameter cannot be known, but that they influenced, or were influenced by, contemporary globe-making is suggested by their similarity with the so-called Jagellonian 'gold' globe and with the Lenox globe.5
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Notes biographiques
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1 Cabayé on which this entry is largely based, n. 68, on the grounds that this was the seat of Boulengier's patrons.
2 Cosmographiae introductio cum quibusdaam geometriae ac astronomiae principis ad eamdem necessariis insuper quartor Americi Vespicii navigationes, Lyon n. d.[1517 or 1518].
3 That is the description of the equatorium by Willem Gilliszoon of Wissekerke (Zeland), Liber desideratus super celestium motuum indagatione sine calculo, of which the editio princeps was published at Lyon in 1494.
4 For descriptions of the gores see Harrisse 494-6. Nordenskiöld 767 & pl. xxxvi; Shirley 43 pl. 40; Stevenson i 78-9.
5 Dekker & Krogt 172 suggest that Boulengier was the actual author of these globes, a suggestion that seems to derive from Tadeusz Estreicher on the grounds that the term 'America noviter reperta' is used both on the Jagellonian globe and on Boulengier's gores. This seems weak evidence. For a summary of the situatiuon se King 42-3;
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1 This chart is mentioned in the introduction to an early 17th century manuscript copy of the Quarte gallicane which belonged to Pierrre Pithou (1582-1613). BnF mss Fond Dupuis 828 f 167.
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Bibliographie
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Astrolabium phisicum, n.d. [c. 1514].
Motus novae spere et trepidaciones spere MDXIV1
Universalis cosmographie descriptio tam in solido quem plano, n.d. [c. 1514]
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Adresse ; enseigne ; période ; source
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A la tor de la Ganela Albi Cabay
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Identifiant
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1221
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ark:/18469/1r7kq