gigantic head out of which flames were made to issue:[1] in the river procession on the occasion of the marriage of Henry VII. and Elizabeth (1487) the “Bachelors’ Barge” carried a dragon spouting flames, and Hall relates that at the marriage of Anne Boleyn (1538) “there went before the lord mayor’s barge a foyst or wafter full of ordnance, which foyst also carried a great red dragon that spouted out wild fyre and round about were terrible monstrous and wild men casting fire and making a hideous noise.”[2] These individuals were known as “green men.” Their clothing was green, they wore fantastic masks, and carried “fire clubs.” They were sometimes employed to clear the way at processions.[3]
Soon after the introduction of gunpowder the gunner and fireworker came into existence; at first they were not soldiers, but civilians who sometimes exercised military functions, and part of their duties was intimately connected with the preparation of fireworks both for peace and war. The emperor Charles V. brought his fireworks under definite regulations in 1535,[4] and eventually other countries did the same. The ignes triumphales were an early form of public fireworks. Scaffold poles were erected with trophies at their summits, while fixed around them were tiers of casks filled with combustibles, so that they presented the appearance of huge flaming trees; at their bases crouched dragons or other mythical beasts. With such a display Antwerp welcomed the archduke of Austria in 1550.[5] Then the “fire combat” came into fashion. Helmets from which flames would issue were provided for the performers; there were also swords and clubs that would give out sparks at every stroke, lances with fiery points, and bucklers that when struck gave forth a detonation and a flame. A picture of a combat with weapons such as these will be found in Hanzelet’s Recueil de machines militaires (1620). In addition, the fireworker grew to be somewhat of a scenic artist who could devise a romantic background and fill it with shapes bizarre, beautiful or terrific; he had to make his castle, his cave or his rocky ravine, and people his stage with distressed damsel, errant knight or devouring dragon. Furthermore he had to give motion to the inanimate persons of the drama; thus his dragon would run down an incline on hidden wheels, be actuated by a rope, or be propelled by a rocket.[6] In 1613 at the marriage of the prince palatine to the daughter of James, the pyrotechnic display was confided to four of the king’s gunners, who provided a fiery drama which included a giant, a dragon, a lady, St George, a conjurer, and an enchanted castle, jumbled up together after the approved fashion of the Spenserian legends.[7] As time went on a more refined taste rejected the bizarre features of the old displays, artistic merit began to creep into the designs, and an effort was made to introduce something appropriate to the occasion. Thus Clarmer of Nuremberg, a well-known fire-worker, celebrated the capture of Rochelle (1613) by an adaptation of the Andromeda legend, where Rochelle was the rock, Andromeda the Catholic religion, the monster Heresy, and Perseus on his Pegasus the all-conquering Louis XIII.[8] In the first half of the 17th century many books[9] on fireworks appeared, which avoided the old grotesque ideas and advocated skill and finesse. “It is a rare thing,” says Nye (1648), “to represent a tree or fountain in the air.” The most celebrated work of them all was the Great Art of Artillery by Siemienowitz, which was considered important enough to be translated into English by order of the Board of Ordnance, nearly eighty years after it had appeared.[10] The classic façade now came into fashion; on it and about it were placed emblematic figures, and disposed around were groups of rockets, Roman candles, &c., musket barrels for projecting stars, and mortars from which were fired shells called balloons, which were full of combustibles. The figures were carved out of wood which was soaped or waxed over and covered with papier mâché so that a skin was formed: this was cut vertically into two parts, removed from the wood, formed into a hollow figure, and filled with fireworks.
National fireworks now assumed a stately and dignified appearance, and for two centuries played a conspicuous part all over Europe in the public expression of thanksgiving or of triumph. Representations and sometimes accounts will be found in the British Museum[11] of the more important English displays, from the coronation of James II. down to the peace rejoicings of 1856, during which period national fireworks were provided by the officials of the Ordnance. But since the days of Ranelagh and Vauxhall fireworks have become a subject of private enterprise, and the triumphs of such firms as Messrs Brock or Messrs Pain at the Crystal Palace and elsewhere have been without an official rival. (J. R. J. J.)
Modern Fireworks.—In modern times the art of pyrotechny has been gradually improved by the work of specialists, who have had the advantage of being guided by the progress of scientific chemistry and mechanics. As in all such cases, however, science is useless without the aid of practical experience and acquired manual dexterity.
Many substances have a strong tendency to combine with oxygen, and will do so, in certain circumstances, so energetically as to render the products of the combination (which may be solid matter or gas) intensely hot and luminous. This is the general cause of the phenomenon known as fire. Its special character depends chiefly on the nature of the substances burned and on the manner in which the oxygen is supplied to them. As is well known, our atmosphere contains oxygen gas diluted with about four times its volume of nitrogen; and it is this oxygen which supports the combustion of our coal and candles. But it is not often that the pyrotechnist depends wholly upon atmospheric oxygen for his purposes; for the phenomena of combustion in it are too familiar, and too little capable of variation, to strike with wonder. Two cases, however, where he does so may be instanced, viz. the burning of magnesium powder and of lycopodium, both of which are used for the imitation of lightning in theatres. Nor does the pyrotechnist resort much to the use of pure oxygen, although very brilliant effects may be produced by burning various substances in glass jars filled with the gas. Indeed, the art could never have existed in anything like its present form had not certain solid substances become known which, containing oxygen in combination with other elements, are capable of being made to evolve large volumes of it at the moment it is required. The best examples of these solid oxidizing agents are potassium nitrate (nitre or saltpetre) and chlorate; and these are of the first importance in the manufacture of fireworks. If a portion of one of these salts be thoroughly powdered and mixed with the correct quantity of some suitable combustible body, also reduced to powder, the resulting mixture is capable of burning with more or less energy without any aid from atmospheric oxygen, since each small piece of fuel is in close juxtaposition to an available and sufficient store of the gas. All that is required is that the liberation of the oxygen from the solid particles which contain it shall be started by the application of heat from without, and the
- ↑ J. B. Nichols & Sons, London Pageants.
- ↑ Hall’s Chronicles.
- ↑ J. Bate, Mysteries of Nature and Art (1635). This contains a picture of a green man.
- ↑ Geschichte des Feuerwerkswesen (Berlin, 1887). The Jubilee pamphlet of the Brandenburg Artillery.
- ↑ See “Fairholts’ Collection” bequeathed to the Royal Society of Antiquaries.
- ↑ Journal of the Royal Artillery, vol. xxxii. No. 11.
- ↑ Somers’ Tracts, vol. iii.
- ↑ De Frezier.
- ↑ Diego Ufano, Artillery, in Spanish (1614); Master Gunner Norton, The Gunner and The Gunner’s Dialogue (1628); F. de Malthe (Malthus), Artificial Fireworks, in French and English (1628); “Hanzelet,” Recueil de plusieurs machines militaires et feux artificiels pour la guerre et récréation (1620 and 1630); Furttenback, master gunner of Bavaria, Halinitro Pyrobolio, in German (1627); (John Babington Matross, Pyrotechnia, 1635); Nye, master gunner of Worcester, Art of Gunnery (Worcester, 1648); Casimir Siemienowitz, lieut.-general of the Ordnance to the king of Poland, The Great Art of Artillery, in French (1650).
- ↑ Translated by George Shelvocke, 1727, by order of the surveyor-general of the Ordnance.
- ↑ “Crace Collection” in the print-room; the King’s Prints and Drawings in the library. See also “The Connection of the Ordnance Department with National and Royal Fireworks,” R. A. Journal, vol. xxii. No. 11.
