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Details
[RENAISSANCE CITY FORTIFICATION]. Illustrated manuscript on paper [Italy, early 17th century]
Defending the Renaissance city: an early-17th-century manual on the use of geometry for strategic fortification.
295 x 440mm. ii + 21 + i illustrated leaves, diagram scales and keys in Italian (tattering at page edges not affecting the drawings, some staining and foxing in margins, one marginal wormhole). Contemporary limp vellum (cockled, small repaired loss).
Content: 21 pen-and-ink drawings of imaginary cities and details of their fortifications.
In 1564, the Italian scholar, military engineer, town planner and mathematician, Girolamo Maggi (1523-1572) edited and published Della fortificatione delle città, a work on the military defence of cities written by Giacomo Fusto Castriotto. The text raised the possibility of protecting an urban area through a complex geometric layout designed to confuse an enemy, an idea that proved enormously popular: the present manuscript belongs to a body of ‘fortification literature’ that flourished from the 16th to 18th centuries, comprising manuals and treatises on the subject.
Defending the Renaissance city: an early-17th-century manual on the use of geometry for strategic fortification.
295 x 440mm. ii + 21 + i illustrated leaves, diagram scales and keys in Italian (tattering at page edges not affecting the drawings, some staining and foxing in margins, one marginal wormhole). Contemporary limp vellum (cockled, small repaired loss).
Content: 21 pen-and-ink drawings of imaginary cities and details of their fortifications.
In 1564, the Italian scholar, military engineer, town planner and mathematician, Girolamo Maggi (1523-1572) edited and published Della fortificatione delle città, a work on the military defence of cities written by Giacomo Fusto Castriotto. The text raised the possibility of protecting an urban area through a complex geometric layout designed to confuse an enemy, an idea that proved enormously popular: the present manuscript belongs to a body of ‘fortification literature’ that flourished from the 16th to 18th centuries, comprising manuals and treatises on the subject.
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