Villard de Honnecourt was a 13th-century artist from Picardy in northern France. He is known to history only through a surviving portfolio or "sketchbook" containing about 250 drawings and designs of a wide variety of subjects. Nothing is known of Villard apart from what can be gleaned from his surviving "sketchbook." Based on the large number of architectural designs in the portfolio, it was traditionally thought that Villard was a successful, itinerant architect and engineer. This view is rejected today, as there is no evidence of him working as an architect or in any other identifiable profession, the drawings contain many inaccuracies and misunderstandings that would be surprising from a practicing architect, he was trained as a metalworker. Nonetheless, it is clear from his drawings that he was interested in architecture and that he traveled to some of the major ecclesiastical building sites of his day to record details of these buildings, his drawing of one of the west facade towers of Laon Cathedral and those of radiating chapels and a main vessel bay and exterior, of Rheims Cathedral are of particular interest.

Villard tells us, with pride, that he had been in many lands and that he made a trip to Hungary where he remained many days, but he does not say why he went there or who sent him. It has been proposed that he may have been a lay agent or representative of the cathedral chapter of Cambrai Cathedral to obtain a relic of St. Elizabeth of Hungary who had made a donation to the cathedral chapter and to whom the chapter dedicated one of the radiating chapels in their new chevet, he claimed to have made many of his drawings "from life", an activity more associated with much artists of the Renaissance. The so-called "sketchbook" of Villard de Honnecourt dates to about c.1225-1235. It was discovered in the mid-19th century and is presently housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, under the shelfmark MS Fr 19093, it consists of 33 parchment sheets measuring on 9.25 x 6.1 inches. The manuscript is not complete, its original extent cannot be determined; because the drawings and captions are oriented in many different directions, the album appears to have been assembled in an ad hoc fashion, as if the individual sheets were not intended to be bound together into book form.

It is unclear whether it was Villard himself or a party who assembled and bound the leaves into a book. The album contains about 250 drawings; these include architectural designs, a great variety of human and animal subjects, ensembles of religious and secular figures derived from or intended as sculptural groups, ecclesiastical objects, mechanical devices, engineering constructions such as lifting devices and a water-driven saw, a number of automata, designs for war engines such as a trebuchet, many other subjects. Many drawings are accompanied by labels; the original purpose of the album is the subject of controversy. It was thought to have served as a kind of training manual for practicing architects; this is rejected by most current researchers, because Villard's drawings seem fundamentally ill-suited to such a purpose, though it has been argued that the drawings were deliberately simplistic and abstracted to serve as coded mnemonic devices for architects who were initiated into the relevant oral tradition.

Most scholars today believe it more served as a pattern or model book, containing designs for manuscript illumination or metalwork. Several printed facsimiles of the album have appeared. Parker, J. H. and J. Facsimile of the Sketch-book of Wilars de Honnecourt, an Architect of the Thirteenth Century. London, 1859. - See. Bowie, Theodore; the Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1959. Hahnloser, Hans R. Villard de Honnecourt. Kritische Gesamtausgabe des Bauhüttenbuches ms. fr. 19093 der Pariser Nationalbibliothek. Graz, 1972.. Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain, et al. Carnet de Villard de Honnecourt. Paris, 1986; the Medieval Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006. Barnes, Carl F. Jr; the portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt: a new critical edition and color facsimile. Farnham. A full digital facsimile is available online via the BNF's online library, Gallica: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10509412z.r=villard%20de%20honnecourt Barnes, Carl F. Jr. Villard de Honnecourt--the artist and his drawings: a critical bibliography.

Boston, MA: G. K. Hall, 1982. Barnes, Carl F. Jr. "Le'probleme' Villard de Honnecourt." In Les batisseurs des cathedrales gothiques, ed. Roland Recht, pp. 209–223. Barnes, Carl F. JRr “An Essay on Villard de Honnecourt, Cambrai Cathedral, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary,” New Approaches to Medieval Architecture, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011, pp. 77–91. Bugslag, James. “contrefais al vif: nature and the lion drawings of Villard de Honnecourt.” Word & Image 17, no. 4: 360-378. Gimpel, Jean. "Villard de Honnecourt: Architect and Engineer." In The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, pp. 114–142. Perkinson, Stephen. “Portraits and counterfeits: Villard de Honnecourt and thirt

St. Joseph is a small city in and the county seat of Buchanan County, United States. Small parts of St. Joseph extend into Missouri. Saint Joseph is known for hosting the Kansas City Chiefs Training Camp every year at Missouri Western State University. Saint Joseph is filled with many lush forests and parks as well as its own go kart track and mini golf course, it is the principal city of the St. Joseph Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Buchanan, DeKalb counties in Missouri and Doniphan County, Kansas; as of the 2010 census, St. Joseph had a total population of 76,780, making it the eighth largest city in the state, the third largest in Northwest Missouri. St. Joseph is located thirty miles north of the Kansas City, Missouri city limits and 125 miles south of Omaha, Nebraska; the city was named after the biblical Saint Joseph. The city is located on the Missouri River, it is the birthplace of hip hop star Eminem as well as the death place of Jesse James. St. Joseph is home to Missouri Western State University.

St. Joseph was founded on the Missouri River by Joseph Robidoux, a local fur trader, incorporated in 1843. In its early days, it was a bustling outpost and rough frontier town, serving as a last supply point and jumping-off point on the Missouri River toward the "Wild West", it was the westernmost point in the United States accessible by rail until after the American Civil War. The main east-west downtown streets were named for Robidoux's eight children: Faraon, Francois, Edmond, Charles and Messanie; the street between Sylvanie and Messanie was named for Angelique. St. Joseph, or "St. Joe", as it was called by many, was a "Jumping-Off Point" for those headed to the Oregon Territory in the mid-1800s; these cities, including Independence, St. Joseph, were where pioneers would stay and purchase supplies before they would head out in wagon trains; the town was a bustling place, was the second city in the US to have electric streetcars. Between April 3, 1860, late October 1861, St. Joseph was one of the two endpoints of the Pony Express, which operated for a short period over the land inaccessible by rail, to provide fast mail service.

The pony riders carried along with the mail, a small personal Bible. Today the Pony Express Museum hosts visitors in the old stables. On April 3, 1882 outlaw Jesse James was killed at his home located at 1318 Lafayette, now sited next to The Patee House. In the post-Civil War years, when the economy was down, the hotel had served for a time as the home of the Patee Female College, followed by the St. Joseph Female College up to 1880. James was living under the alias of Mr. Howard. An excerpt from a popular poem of the time is: "...that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard has laid poor Jesse in his grave." The Heaton-Bowman-Smith Funeral Home maintains a small museum about Jesse James. Their predecessors conducted the funeral; the museum is open to the public. His home is now known as the Jesse James Home Museum, it has been relocated at least three times, features the bullet hole from that fateful shot. St. Joseph is identified by the slogan, "Where the Pony Express started and Jesse James ended."

Among properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are the Patee House, a former hotel now maintained as a museum of transportation, the Missouri Theatre, an ornate movie palace. St. Joseph's population peaked in 1900, with a census population of 102,979; this population figure is questionable, as civic leaders tried to inflate the numbers for that census. At the time, it was the home to one of the largest wholesale companies in the Midwest, the Nave & McCord Mercantile Company, as well as the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the C. D. Smith & Company, which would become C. D. Smith Healthcare; the Walnut Park Farm Historic District near St. Joseph was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In 1997, St. Joseph was named an "All-America City" by the National Civic League. St. Joseph was voted the top true western town of 2007 by True West Magazine, in the January/February 2008 issue. Saint Joseph is located at 39°45′29″N 94°50′12″W, on the Missouri/Kansas border in northwestern Missouri close to Nebraska.

The nearest major metropolitan area to St. Joseph is the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, which begins 30 miles to the south; the nearest major airport is Kansas City International Airport, 35 miles to the south. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 44.77 square miles, of which 43.99 square miles is land and 0.78 square miles is water. The monthly weather averages listed below are taken from National Weather Service 1981-2010 Normals recorded at Rosecrans Airport; because of the Airport's location near the Missouri River and at a low elevation, official overnight lows during wintertime are several degrees colder than at other places within the city. Snowfall is not recorded at the St Joseph weather station although surrounding reporting stations receive 12-20 inches of snowfall annually; as of the census of 2010, there were 76,780 people, 29,727 households, 18,492 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,745.4 inhabitants per square mile.

There were 33,189 housing units at an average density of 754.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 87.8% White, 6.0% Black, 0.5% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 2.0% f

Frank R. Day was an entrepreneur in Los Angeles and Monterey, California, in the late 19th century and was a member of the governing bodies of both cities, he was chief of the Los Angeles volunteer fire department. Day was born in South Bend, Indiana, on April 9, 1853, the son of Lott Day of Ohio and Anna Wright of Pennsylvania, she died at the age of 33, leaving young Frank and two daughters. Frank came with his family to California in 1866, his father bought the Capitol Hotel in Sacramento; the younger Day moved to Los Angeles in 1883. Day was married twice. At his death he was survived by his first wife, Elizabeth Mappa of Los Angeles, 18-year-old daughter, Anna O. in Los Angeles and his second wife, Jessie Oliver of Monterey, 2-year-old child in San Francisco. Day committed suicide in June 1899 when he sealed his room in the Van Dyke lodging house at 330 McAllister Street, San Francisco, turned on all the gas jets, he left a note stating: "If my body is found, tell my friends at Wells, Fargo & Co. to bury me at Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland.

My father, Loth Day, mother, Celine Day, are buried there."Of him, the San Francisco Call said: " Having run through two moderate fortunes, having become divorced from two wives by reason of his dissipated habits... Frank R. Day... ended his life with the hand of a suicide.... Day was a clever man, of a pleasing address and a faculty for making friends; when not under the influence of liquor he was a charming companion and numbered among his friends many persons of considerable influence.... By the death of his father Day inherited considerable property... but he ran through it in a short time.. Day learned civil engineering in California and worked for the Pacific Improvement Company for a time. Over a twenty-year period he worked for the Southern Pacific and other railroad companies and for Wells Fargo & Company, he moved to Los Angeles in 1883 and, with Jim Ash, ran the restaurant at the Palace Hotel, at 113 North Main Street and 110 North Spring Street, Los Angeles in the late 1880s. He organized and was connected with "the well-known business firm of Joe Bayer & Co."In 1886, he sold his business interests in Los Angeles but remained in the Fire Department there.

Day was an organizer and director of the first telephone company in Los Angeles and after he moved to Monterey he was "an organizer of, a heavy stockholder in, manager of the Monterey Electric Light & Development Company."In 1897 he was conducting a saloon in Monterey, afterward he worked as a clerk at the Wells Fargo office in San Francisco until shortly before his death. Day was elected to represent the 2nd Ward, "one of the wealthiest wards in the city," on the Los Angeles Common Council on December 4, 1882, was reelected the next year and served until December 10, 1885. In November 1885 Day argued against a motion made by Councilman Hiram Sinsabaugh that a picture of a nude woman hanging "at the lower end of the council chamber" be removed, he said. Belong to Conference Engine Company, had been on exhibition in Preuss A. Piroul's window for four months." The council ordered it taken down. On March 7, 1885, "the fire delegates" elected Day as chief of the volunteer fire department; the Common Council, with member Day absent from the meeting, received the report and filed it on March 24.

It was said that Day was the first chief of the fire department when it became a paid department instead of a volunteer force. He resigned in January 1886, with a message to the Common Council that he could no longer serve because he would be "out of the city a good deal of the time." He was a member of the Monterey Town Council in 1893. Access to the Los Angeles Times links may require the use of a library card