Seventeenth-century illustrated Italian manuscript about geometry and artillery

[Artillery]. Di alcuni principi di geomettria, necessarij per intendere, e sapere fare spedissam[en]te tutto quello, che si appartiene ad un valoroso bombard[ie]re.

Italy, 17th century.

Large folio (ca. 270 x 410 mm). Italian manuscript on paper. 60 ff. comprising 9 pp. of text and 54 plates (versos blank), with 8 additional drawings loosely inserted or pasted on the inside front cover. Contemporary carta rustica.

 25,000.00

Comprising mainly 54 full-page plates executed in pen and ink, illustrating cannons, mortars, explosives, crossbows (with explosives), hoists, winches, ballistic trajectories, diagrams and artillerymen. Many of the drawings in this manuscript are modelled on the engraved plates in Diego Ufano's treatise on artillery, first published in Spanish (Brussels, 1612). There does not appear to have been an edition in Italian.

Binding worn with some staining to lower corners. From the collection of Thomas Fremantle, 3rd Baron Cottesloe (1862-1956), commander of the Territorial Army and president of the Society for Army History Research.

Stock Code: BN#51083 Tags: , ,