Nuovo Metodo di Fortificazioni Militari.
Rome, s.n. 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 (spine restored), gilt spine and title, edges sprinkled green.
THIS ILLUSTRATED MANUAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE TREATS REGULAR AND IRREGULAR FORTIFICATIONS, MAPMAKING, SURVEYING AND TECHNICAL DRAWING. The work shows the influence of 17th-century French ideas and principles.
The basics of geometry and a dictionary of relevant architectural terms introduce the main text, which concerns the siting and building of fortifications in various terrains and environments (rivers, mountains, peninsulas, islands…), representing whole fortified complexes and their parts. Also addressed are strategic aspects of offense and defense, hardening city centers against attack, protecting industrial sites, estimating the thickness of a wall, the depth of a moat and the volume of soil required for a rampart and measuring distances and heights on the fly.
THE NEAPOLITAN PRINCE CARLO DI CAPUA COMMISSIONED THIS MANUSCRIPT FOR HIS PRIVATE INSTRUCTION while a student at the elite Collegio Romano. In addition to tutoring noble boys, Quarteroni lectured on mathematics, physics and astronomy at the Sapienza in Rome. I have found at most four related manuscripts prepared by Quarteroni. That at Harvard, dated 1729, was commissioned by another Neapolitan prince, Raimondo di Sangro (1710-71), the inventor and scientist. In excellent condition, from the library of the Earls of Minto and later of C.E. Kenney. In excellent condition (some red offsetting in the colored drawings).
¶Kenney, Catalogue (24.X.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 and Ilari’s Scrittori militari italiani dell’età moderna 593.
Price: $9,500.00