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"In 1671, Dutch diplomat and scientist Nicolaes Witsen published a book that served, among other things, as an encyclopedia for the ""shell-first"" method of ship construction. In the centuries since, Witsen's rather convoluted text has also become a valuable source for insights into historical shipbuilding methods and philosophies during the ""Golden Age"" of Dutch maritime trade. However, as André Wegener Sleeswyk's foreword notes, Witsen's work is difficult to access not only for its seventeenth-century Dutch language but also for the vagaries of its author's presentation. Fortunately for scholars and students of nautical archaeology and shipbuilding, this important but chaotic work has now been reorganized and elucidated by A. J. Hoving and translated into English by Alan Lemmers. In Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age, Hoving, master model builder for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, sorts out the steps in Witsen's method for building a seventeenth-century pinas by following them and building a model of the vessel. Experimenting with techniques and materials, conducting research in other publications of the time, and rewriting as needed to clarify and correct some vital omissions in the sequence, Hoving makes Witsen's work easier to use and understand. Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age is an indispensable guide to Witsen's work and the world of his topic: the almost forgotten basics of a craftsmanship that has been credited with the flourishing of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. To view a sample of Ab Hoving's ship model drawings, please visit: http: //nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/AbHoving.htm"

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9781603442862

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The book written by Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717) and published in Amsterdam in 1671 was until now at he same time famous and unknown: famous because regarded rightly as the oldest treaty of naval architecture published in Holland; unknown as only some very rare historians and archaeologists of Dutch naval architecture had read and studied in its entirety this difficult and often confused, but however much essential, book. Aeloude in Hedendaegsche Scheepsbouw in Bestier (Ancient and Modern Shipbuilding and Management): this fundamental book for the knowledge of art to build ships in Holland during the XVIIth century is from now accessible to many people - researchers and students in nautical archaeology and maritime history, shiplovers, modelmakers... - thanks to the years from theoretical and practical research (through model making), with the talent of draftsman, the historical scholarship and the quality of writing A. J. Hoving on the one hand, and with the competences of translation (Dutch/English) of A. Lemmers on the other hand. In a remarkable way, the Master-Shipbuilder A.J. Hoving operated a second reading and a complete rewriting with many new technical and historical commentaries of the work on N. Witsen, following the logic of the technical processes of the shipyards of the area of Amsterdam. The result of this immense work is his book entitled Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Gold Age. By the texat, but also by the drawing, one follows thus under the erudite, specifies, rigorous and always comprehensible and harmonious direction of Master Hoving, the 122 sequences of the construction of a pinas of 134 feet length as if one were at the XVIIth century in a shipyard, looking at working of tens of carpenters in the noise of adzes, axes and saws, in the ordors of oak, fir tree and hot pitch. There is not any doubt that 340 years after the publication of the treaty of N. Witsen, its edition by A. J. Hoving constitutes (and will remain it

The book written by Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717) and published in Amsterdam in 1671 was until now at he same time famous and unknown: famous because regarded rightly as the oldest treaty of naval architecture published in Holland; unknown as only some very rare historians and archaeologists of Dutch naval architecture had read and studied in its entirety this difficult and often confused, but however much essential, book. <p><br> Aeloude in Hedendaegsche Scheepsbouw in Bestier (Ancient and Modern Shipbuilding and Management): this fundamental book for the knowledge of art to build ships in Holland during the XVIIth century is from now accessible to many people - researchers and students in nautical archaeology and maritime history, shiplovers, modelmakers... - thanks to the years from theoretical and practical research (through model making), with the talent of draftsman, the historical scholarship and the quality of writing A. J. Hoving on the one hand, and with the competenc

. . . maritime historians and archaeologists studying seventeenth-century ship technology will find [ Nicolaes Witsen and Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age ] essiential to reading. -;/div>--Ian Friel International Journal of Maritime History (10/14/2013)

Author Information

A. J. (Ab) Hoving is the senior restorer of the Navy Collection in the department of Restoration and Conservation at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and a recognized expert on historic Dutch shipbuilding methods.

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