Bourdin, Seventeenth-century French illustrated manuscript of two works on military architecture and fortifications

BOURDIN, PIERRE

Mid seventeenth-century French manuscript, illustrated with woodcuts, of "L'art de fortiffier les Places Regulieres et irregulieres" and "Le Dessein ou La Perspective militaire"

containing 183 full-page woodcuts facing the text and 3 folding engraved diagrams, with two full-page titles for "L'art de fortiffier les Places Regulieres et irregulieres, Expliqué practiqué et demontre D'une façon facile et agreable" and "Le Dessein ou La Perspective militaire Pour Ceux qui desirent practiquer L'Art de fortiffier", also including two smaller chapters, "Des pieces, Noms, et Termes propres de L'art de fortiffier" and "L'explication des ouvrages de Fortiffication Reguliere"; the text written in black ink in a neat calligraphic hand on up to twenty-nine lines per page

8vo (c.170 x 110mm.), c.216 leaves, grapes watermark lettered "S G" (similar to Heawood 2182), contemporary mottled calf gilt, elaborate gilt centrepiece with monogram, spine gilt in compartments, marbled edges, probably third quarter of the seventeenth century, later (probably C19) attestation to flyleaf in red ink (supposedly by Vauban), the manuscript text showing through on to some of the woodcuts

This manuscript includes practically all the text and plates from Pierre Bourdin's L'architecture militaire, ou L'art de fortifier les places regulieres et irregulieres, etc. (1655: cf Gallica /ark:/12148/bpt6k6329647r) and his Le dessein ou la perspective militaire: Pièce très-facile, et très necessaire à tous ceux qui desirent de pratiquer l'Art de fortifier

(1655: cf Macclesfield copy, Sotheby's, 10 June 2004, lot 405). There are no annotations to the text that might have indicated its use as a pre-publication source, but the presence of all the necessary plates suggests that it must be contemporary. The two smaller chapters are both for "L'Art de fortiffier", but appear here in a different order to that printed in L'architecture militaire.

Bourdin (1595-1653) was a Jesuit teacher of mathematics at the Collège de Clermont in Paris in the 1630s.

PROVENANCE:

bought for £9-9s (extract from sale catalogue loosely inserted) as a manuscript signed by Vauban