Ironwork A Continuation Of The First Handbook Comprising From The Close Of The Mediaeval Period To The End Of The Eighteenth

Excerpt from Ironwork, Vol. 2: Being a Continuation of the First Handbook, and Comprising From the Close of the Mediaeval Period to the End of the Eighteenth Century, Excluding English Work The great advance in civilization known as the Renaissance broke with many relics of barbarism, and with it the smith lost his exceptional position among craftsmen. But though divested of its antique glamour, and with its mighty engineering applications yet unthought of, that part of the subject still to be treated has not lost interest, and the prosperity of nations appears to become more and more bound up with that of the iron crafts. Thus with the decay of ironworking, Flanders, Spain, and Italy sank from their high positions, while Germany, France, and Switzerland continued to flourish. The proximate causes of a nation's rise or decay are immeasurably complicated, but, as a rule, the active working of iron seems to be an indication of national strength. This aspect of the subject could not, of course, be entered upon in such a work as the present, but the influence of one nation's ironworking upon that of another, through trade routes, rivalry, or neighbourly emulation, is briefly sketched. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.