Fireworks

ccording to Ren Descartes's biographer Adrien Haillet ( 1649-1706) it should be the luisiness of the gentleman philosopher to attend court spectacles, to know what princes 'do represent of most pompous and glorious upon the Theatre of the Universe'. One of the things I descartes and his scholarly friends would have .seen \\ ere the new 'artificial fireworks' that graced many ^ (Uirt festivals of the age, as gunners fired off thou^ands ot rockets, bombs and fiery stars over lakes and I ivers, or from brightly painted ephemeral castles and classical temples. Displays filled audiences with a mixture of wonder and terror. The history of fireworks reveals the range of reLitionships which existed between arti.sans and .scientists (or natural philosophers as they were known betre the 1830s). Historians of science have long rect)gnised how artisanal skills were combined with scholastic natural philosophy in the I6th and 17th centuries to create new sciences such as the mechanical and experimental philosophies. The artisans' practical goals, empirical knowledge and vernacular language all helped to forge the scientific revolution. Kxploring the world of one particular strand of craft, that of the fireworker, or 'artificer', offers further insights into this relationship. Between the 16th and i8th centuries fireworks fascinated princes and natural philosophers alike. The latter exploited pyrotechnic arts to create new scientific theories and practices and by tbe close of the 17th century both the 'new science' and pyrotechny were institutionalised icross Kurope in academies and arsenals. M y the end of tlie 18tb century a geography of art and science emerged, in which class more than locality played a prominent role, as both fireworks and natural philosophy were transformed by the constant circulation of their practitioners around the Cx)iitineiit, giving ri.se to important scientific innovations and to the kinds of fireworks displays we still enjoy today.

From war to peace

The origins of fireworks lay in China, but European fireworks followed a distinctive development after their introduction from the list in the 13th and 14th centuries, lvarly European fireworks were used for war, vs ith rockets, bombs and fire tubes being hurled i;ainst enemies during the 15th and 16th centuries. I here were also peaceful fireworks, adding drama to religious plays and festivals, with squibs attached to flying angels or pyrotechnics made to represent the fiery mouth of Hell. In the 16th and 17tb centuries, the fireworks of the battlefield and the church slowly merged into peaceful displays of military pyrotechnics, first in religious plays for the courts and then in secular triumphs and performances based on classical allegories. By the close of the 16th century many European courts employed gunner artificers to stage grand llreworks marking royal occasions, military victories and the New Year.
A contemporary French llustration of a firework display in the Place Louis XV on the occasion of the dedication of the equestrian statue of the king, June 20th, 1763. November 20101 HistoryToiny 11

Fireworks

When a hundred thunderbolts exploded at fireworks in La Rochelle, France, in 1629:

nave bystanders along the shore... were stunned and frightened and... thrown about pell-mell... The Court alone remained still and undaunted, being well acquainted with the vanity and ostentation of these diversions.

Fireworks ofthe late 16th and early 17th century were a form of artificial nature, showing suns and stars, fiery exhalations, snow and rain. These effects deeply impressed the princely patrons and courtiers who used them as tools of political distinction. The new fireworks also came to interest nattiral philosophers intent on gaining credit at court for fresh insights into nature. Those such as Descartes, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton used fireworks as powerful devices in their descriptions of nature. Some natural philosophers imagined the possibility of human flight using fireworks, such as the popular 'flying dragon', a painted wooden and canvas creature made to fly along a rope using rockets. Others saw in fireworks viable mechanisms for explaining the motion of comets or the formation of stars. Both the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the Fnglish chemist Robert Boyle imagined the divinely designed universe unfolding like a fireworks display, with one piece igniting another following an initial spark from the supreme artificer. Many philo.sophers, including Newton, proposed that natural thunder and lightning must be cau.sed by the gunpowder-like explosions of nitrous and sulphurous particles in the air and developed a pyrotechnic meteorology that explained various weather phenomena and heavenly appearances. Setting the stage Both fireworks and the new sciences succeeded in attracting princely patronage in the 16th and 17tli centuries and were institutionalised at about the same time by the European courts. Gunner artificers founded arsenals and 'laboratories' for making fireworks, while natural philosophers established academies for the pursuit of science. The stage was set for regular patterns of interaction to emerge between natural philosophers and artificers, though these varied significantly from place to place. Comparing London, St Petersburg and Paris reveals this geographical variation in relations between artisans and natural philosophers. In the closing decades ofthe 17th century London was home to the Royal Society (see'The Great Experiment', page 10), a club of gentlemen virtuosi promoting experimental philosophy and to the English artillery, located at the Tower and Greenwich until the end of the 17th century and then at what later became known as the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. In turbulent times after the Givil War relations between experimental philosophers and artificers were affected by changing political circumstances. During the Restoration of 1660 fears were expressed over popery and radical enthusiasm, both of which were often associated with fireworks. The Jesuits were referred to as 'incendiaries' intent on
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Fireworks were'artificial', or full of art, because they often mimicked 'meteors', the natural phenomena ofthe skies and the heavens, and this partly explains how fireworks derived their force in political displays. In religious dramas, artificial scenery served to evoke in audiences the power of the heavens - the way thunder and lightning, comets and strange weather portended God's judgement over men. Fireworks imitating thunder and lightning might impress audiences with the same sense of power as their natural counterparts, though it was the prince rather than God whose power was celebrated. Gourtiers recognised this as artifice and represented themselves as the unperturbed spectators of fireworks, while they imagined the 'vulgar' masses looking on in terror, learning to submit themselves before the powers who controlled such potent effects.
12 History Today | November 2010

'The Manner of IVIaking and Representing Flowers etc in Chinese Fireworks', an illustration from the Universal. 1764.

Fireworks

destroying London with fireworks; the (reat Fire of London was often blamed on Catholics wielding squibs. In this context, fellows of the Royal Society shaped an experimental philosophy which was notably unspectacular, going to great lengths to ditiferentiate their experimental productions from artificial effects like fireworks. Only after the (jlorious Revolution of 1688, when spectacle became more acceptable to the English, did experimenters begin to engage with fireworks more directly and to cooperate with artisans. In luly 1713 Londoners celebrated the end of the War of the Spanish Succession with grand fireworks on the Thanies. The Newtonian natural philosopher lean 1 heophilus I )esaguliers participated, setting off fireworks from a barge on the Thames. Seeing a stray water rocket exploding under a barge led Desaguliers to conduct experiments on the explosive force of gunpowder underwater by firing more rockets in a nearby pond. The controversial Arian preacher and public lecturer William Whiston also turned to experiments with fireworks after seeing the show on the Thanies. Whiston proposed using rockets as signals to solve the enduring problem of finding longitude at sea. While his method came to nothing, his etibrts established the longitude prize later won by John I larrison. It was a dififerent story in St I'etersbiirg where fireworks served not as inspirations for practical experiments but as conduits lor communicating knowledge and lor cultivating an appreciation of the sciences. Unlike Londoners, long sceptical of pyroteclinic incendiarism, the residents of St Petersburg revelled in fireworks. Peter lhe Cireat, himself a keen artificer, encouraged fireworks in his new Russian capital as part of attempts to Europanise the country; fireworks might teach Russians classical iconography and accommodate them to the llames of war in a playful manner. By the 173()s hugely expensive displays were staged several times a year, set oft trom a special 'firevvt)rks theatre' constructed opposite the Winter Palace and near to the Imperial Academy of Sciences, founded by Peter in 1725 to bring European science to the Russian empire. Russian fireworks were extravagant affairs, fired by expert artificers from the artillery regiments of St Petersburg's Arsenal, located a short distance away on the banks of the river Neva. L'niike the Royal Society, the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences played a key role in creating court fireworks. Since Russia lacked indigenous expertise in classical allegory and European architectural design, academicians were charged from the late 1720s with the composition of allegorical themes for Russia's fireworks. Academicians recognised that
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fulfilling this demand might bring patronage to the academy at a time when many in the Russian government considered closing it. Composing firework allegories made the academy useful to the court and, indeed, many academicians went on to design displays, including the mathematician Christian Cioldbach and the chemist Mikhail Lomonosov, famous as the'first Russian scientist'. The academy even created a dedicated profe.ssorship of eloquence to this end, the most successful incumbent being the German poet Jacob von Sthlin, who designed fireworks for the imperial court for some 30 years. Academicians saw the design of firework allegories as an opportunity both to gain patronage and to educate and civilise the Russian people. 1 heir compositions often included allusions to the sciences. In 1735, for example, a display for the birthday of the Empress Anna Ivanovna included one of the earliest representations in Russia of the astronomical systems of (Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, with an accompanying brochure explaining the systems to the audience. After the display the empress ordered telescopes for the Winter Palace and tried her hand at observing the stars. Eirevvorks thus served the academy's goal of bringing European knowledge to the Russians, while securing the survival of the institution as a valuable source of expertise for the imperial court. However, while the ': academy enioyed formal participation in St Petersburg's pyrotechnic culture, this did not translate into regular interactions between natural philosophers and artificers in the manner of the Royal Society and the Royal Arsenal in London. On the contrary, because the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences feared closure it was determined to maximise the credit it could obtain from the court. As a result academicians tended to obscure the contributions of artificers to successful fireworks, while highlighting their own efforts. This was achieved through print, over which the academy enjoyed a near monopoly in Russia. Brochures produced by the academy to accompany fireworks displays rarely mentioned pyrotechnics, or showed Russian artificers setting them off, but instead emphasised the academicians' own allegorical contributions to displays. This was important because audiences' comments suggest that spectators found the pyrotechnic effects in Russian displays astonishing, while they often ignored, misinterpreted or failed to notice the academicians' allegorical scenery. Print helped to shift attention from artillerists to academicians and, consequently, despite the ottkial participation of the academy in staging fireworks, the relations of academicians and artificers
November 2()U) | Hi.sloryToday 13

A display design from Pyrotechnia or, A discourse of artificial! fire-works by artificer John Babington, published in 1635.

Fireworks

An engraving of a French firework display involving rockets and fleur-de-lys spurting from the body of a swimming lion, c. 1650.

were somewhat antagonistic, with none ofthe collaboration ofthe kind witnessed in London, Natural philosophers and artisan fireworkers in Britain and Russia were thus connected through fireworks, but entertained quite different relationships and interactions, A third example shows how these relations could also differ between absolutist states. As in Russia, French monarchs used fireworks to celebrate great occasions of state, but in a different way fi-om the Russians, This difference hinged on the institutional arrangements among the Paris academies, the nature of French absolutism and the popularity ofthe sciences in French society. The Paris Academy of Sciences, founded in 1666, played no role in staging firework displays, the task tailing to members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, As in Russia, representations of French fireworks obscured the labours of artificers, but this was because absolutist culture demanded that all actions in the state were to be attributed to the king and printed descriptions of displays not only obscured the contributions of artificers but also those of designers. Indeed, accounts of French fireworks claimed that fire itself produced displays, the element yielding to the miraculous powers of Louis XIV, If the sciences did play a role in French pyrotechny, it was perhaps indirectly related to this miracle-working image of the king. Academicians set about discovering the unshakeable laws of nature, which operated throughout the universe and against which the miracles ofthe Sun King might stand out in magnificent relief To discern
HistoryTo/iy | November 2010

the laws of nature was a distinctive goal ofthe Paris Academy (English natural philosophers preferred to seek out exceptional phenomena rather than attempt to determine universal laws), as was the popularity of the sciences among the French nobility. Unlike their Russian counterparts, many French nobles regarded the sciences as fashionable and entertaining. While English natural philosophers sought out practical uses for fireworks, French academicians delighted in entertaining audiences with pyrotechnic demonstrations. The chemist Nicolas Lemery, for instance, produced the first artificial model of a volcano in 1700 by burying sulphur, water and iron filings under the ground, which cracked the earth as they fermented, supporting the idea that these were the ingredients responsible for natural earthquakes and volcanoes. Fashionable society flocked to Lemery's demonstrations. In Paris, the lack of a close relationship between artificers and academicians did not preclude pyrotechnic experimentation.

A firework, from a seiection engraved by J. Lodge, c.1780.

Circulating Skills
By the late 17th and early 18th centuries several distinctive relationships between artificers and natural philosophers had emerged in difterent locations, reflecting the institutional, political and social conditions of different cities. This regionalism, however, was not fixed but dynamic and would be transformed in the course ofthe 18th century through processes of circulating skills and technical exchange. From the 1730s Italian artificers began to travel about Furope, staging fireworks for many ofthe European courts. The architect and stage designer
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Fireworks

Giovanni Niccolo Servandoni composed grand displays in Paris featuring colourfully painted temples, triumphal arches and obelisks. Servandoni staged fireworks in acts like those of operas, following an allegorical narrative. The five Ruggieri brothers of Bologna provided remarkable pyrotechnics for these shows, including fireworks that imitated fountains and water jets, produced using ingenious mechanisms. Parisians were in awe of their displays and in 1749 the English court enticed the Italians to perform in London, while the Ruggieris' collaborator Giuseppe Sarti performed fireworks in the Italian style in Moscow and St Petersburg soon after.

Significant differences
I he roiictions of French, British and Russian scholars to these performances differed significantly and tended to follow local traditions. In Paris, men of letters welcomed the new Italian style, publishing treatises on fireworks to exploit the popularity of the Italian displays. In London, experimental philosophers continued their earlier tradition of seeking practical uses for fireworks, requesting spectators of the Ruggieri shows to measure the height to which their rockets ascended, with a view to using rockets as signals in surveying and navigation. In St Petersburg, not to be outdone by foreigners, the acadetnician
A firework display in St Petersburg to celebrate the birthday of the Empress Elizabeth, December 18th, 1741 by Mii(hail Daniiov.

Lomonosov sought to devise his own pyrotechnic wonders in the form of green-coloured stars, though his efforts did not succeed. Responses reflected the varying traditions of science and pyrotechnics in each city. Simultaneously, however, the spread of Italian pyrotechnics diluted regional variations in performance styles across Europe, while provoking similar reactions among artificers and nobles in all three cities. In Paris, London and St Petersburg local artificers reacted angrily to the appearance of foreign rivals, in some cases leading to violence. The French, British and Rtissian nobility, me;invvhile, all supported the Italians they invited to perform fireworks, punishing any local artificers who opposed thetn. The common response of different classes crossed national borders and would reshape the geography of art and science that characterised fireworks in the early 18th century. Increasingly, as performers circulated around Europe, they commercialised pyrotechnic and natural philosophical effects, producing a new genre of'rational recreations' consumed by a growing middle class. This transformation began as natural philosophers again sought to exploit the popular appeal of fireworks for .scientific ends. As in the previous century, fireworks provided resources for new theories of nature - in this case the

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November 2OtO I HistoryVda)'

IS

Fireworks

curious phenomenon of electricity. Servandoni and the Ruggieris' spectacles provided the backdrop for a growing interest in the 'electric fire' in natural philosophy and fireworks helped make sense of strange new electrical effects. In the 1740s and 1750s performers described the formation of electric sparks in pyrotechnic terms and sought to devise spectacular demonstrations of electricity. The Parisian experimenter Jean-Antoine NoUet used electricity to imitate fireworks, while others used the electric fire to account for phenomena such as thunder and lightning, previously explained with 'gunpowder' theories of nitro-sulphurous particles exploding in the air. Electricity was by no means identical with pyrotechnic fire, however, and by the mid-century the distinctive characteristics of electric fire, its power to produce shocks and to attract and repel bodies, made it a uniquely credible commodity for attracting audiences to natural philosophy. The popularity of both fireworks and electricity soon led performers to hybridise pyrotechnic and natural philosophical effects, creating a genre of'philosophical fireworks'. By the mid-18th century, performers were already selling Italian-style fireworks for private consumption and soon after began blending the skills of science lecturers and pyrotechnicians, travelling about Europe showing new marvels in theatres and pleasure gardens. Some imitated fireworks with electric sparks or jets of inammable air, or set off fireworks from the recently invented hot air and hydrogen balloons
HistoryToay \ November 2010

A man with a firework rocket, French engraving by Abraham Bosse, 1737.

(ultimately, as one might imagine, a quite disastrous enterprise). Others imitated fireworks with light, by placing candles behind spinning, perforated disks whose interference patterns created the impression of glowing sparks. Instrument-makers sold table-top apparatus for making such 'optical' fireworks. As they were commodified, fireworks also became domesticated, stripped of the noise, smell and smoke of traditional performances, to make them amenable to polite society and small enough to be shown in private parlours (miniature 'indoor fireworks' were another invention of this time). The geography of fireworks and natural philosophy was thus transformed by the end of the 18th century. The new fireworks separated out those who could afford to purchase tickets or commodities from the 'vulgar' crowds traditionally seen at displays. While cities such as London, Paris and St Petersburg enjoyed distinctive relationships between communities of artificers and natural philosophers earlier in the century by its close the roles of artificer and natural philosopher might be indistinguishable. There were continuities with the earlier period, lust as fireworks had proved inspirational to new sciences in the 17th century, so they provided powerful resources for managing phenomena such as electricity in the 18th. Pyrotechny equally benefited from .science, as optical, aerial and electrical effects were deployed to make fireworks appealing to polite society. At the close of the 18th century the fii.shionable science of chemi.stry was also recruited to the cause of creating novel pyrotechnics and the result - flames coloured in brilliant reds, greens, blues and yellows by the addition of volatile metallic salts to gunpowder - has endured as a popular element of fireworks displays ever since, long after optical and electrical fireworks disappeared. The history of fireworks reveals the diverse and variegated relationships which have existed between the arts and sciences in Europe since the 16th century. There was no simple importation ot artisanal skills into science in the scientific revolution, as many histories have argued in the past. Rather a series of ongoing, reciprocal and geographically variable interactions that proved as transformative for the art of pyrotechny as it did for the natural sciences.

S'imonWerrett's Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History is published this month by the University of Chicago Press. Further Reading Alan St Hill Brock, A History of Fireworks (George G. Harrap, 1949); Michael R. Lynn, 'Sparks for Sale: The Culture and Commerce of Fireworks', \r\ Eariy Modern France', Fighteenth-Century Life 30 (2006), pp. 74-96; J. R. Mulryne, Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly, Margaret Shewring, eds, Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe (Ashgate, 2004); Kevin Salatino, Incendiary Art: The Representation of Fireworks in Farly Modern Europe (Getty Research Institute, 1997); Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2004). For further articles on this subject, visit; www.historytoday.com/science-technology

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