WOVEN BOOK - Prayer book woven from the illuminations... - Lot 244 - Oger - Blanchet

WOVEN BOOK - Prayer book woven from the illuminations of manuscripts from the 14th to 16th century. Lyon, A. Roux, 1886 [printed September 8, 1887]. Pet. in-8 carré, (8) pp., the first two blank pages, 44 pp., the last one unencumbered, (2) blank pages, 3 full-page figs., margins and number of letters decorated in the style of Gothic books of hours, aubergine Jansenist morocco, spine ribbed, green morocco counterplate decorated with compartments composed of a rich gilded decoration of foliage, birds, burgundy silk endpapers, gilt head, defr. leg. case. (KAUFFMANN-SMALL). Fully woven book. It was printed in about 50 copies and made for the 1889 World's Fair where it won the Grand Prix. The fabric was tightly woven from fine grey and black silk threads according to a "programme" controlled by countless punched cards. The process had been invented around 1801 by Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) from Lyon. Charles Babbage (1791-1871), who is considered to be the inventor of the computer, was inspired by the Jacquard loom for the design of his famous "analytical machine". He himself owned a woven portrait of the inventor with the Jacquard loom in the background. He had the idea of incorporating maps of the Jacquard loom, whose sequential reading gave instructions and data to his machine, and thus imagined the mechanical ancestor of today's computers. However, this formidable programming of the woven book came into being before the first copy of Babbage's machine was made by his youngest son Henry in 1888 in New York City.