Nuovo Metodo di Fortificazioni Militari.
Rome, 1709.
Folio (340 x 217 mm.). [iii], [306], [1 blank]p. In a single cursive hand in brown ink, up to 38 lines per page, margins ruled in ink, four double-page and one hundred thirty-six full-page drawings of fortifications and geometrical shapes — nearly all in contemporary color; on rectos the full-page illustrations face their text, geometry exercises and calculations by a different hand.
Contemporary calf (rubbed), gilt spine and title (spine and corners restored), edges sprinkled green.
The Neapolitan Prince Carlo di Capua commissioned this manuscript on military architecture, mapmaking, surveying and technical drawing while a student at the elite Collegio Clementino in Rome.
After an introduction to geometry and a dictionary of architectural terms, the New Method sets rules for siting and building fortifications, discusses offensive and defensive tactics and offers strategies to strengthen city centers, protect industrial sites, estimate the depth of a moat, measure distances…. Another Quarteroni manuscript, dated 1729, was commissioned by another Neapolitan prince, the inventor and scientist Raimondo di Sangro (1710-71; Harvard, Houghton MS Typ 255). In excellent condition (some offsetting in the colored drawings), from the library of the Earls of Minto and C.E. Kenney (Catalogue (1966) 3382).
¶Attanasio, “Le Fortificazioni nei disegni d'arte del principe allievo” in La Repubblica (1.VIII.2014) online; see Ayala’s Bibliografia militare-italiana 115.
Price: $9,500.00