Belluzzi, Nuova inventione di fabricar fortezze, Venice, 1598, vellum, Philip of Hesse's copy

BELLUZZI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA

Nuova inventione di fabricar fortezze, di varie forme. In qualunque sito di piano, di monte, in acqua, con diversi disegni... tanto in fortezze reali, quanto non reali. Venice: Tommaso Baglioni, 1598

folio (349 x 233mm.), woodcut printer's device on title-page, woodcut initials, illustrations and maps (4 double-page), later binding reusing a leaf of Hebrew manuscript on vellum (containing prayers from the Yom Kippur liturgy, fourteenth or fifteenth century, Ashkenaz, probably German), first six leaves damaged at upper corner with loss of some text, stained at head

FIRST EDITION. Belluzzi worked as a field engineer for the Medici in Florence. He died during an attack on a Sienese fortress in 1554.

LITERATURE:

Edit16 4958

PROVENANCE:

Philippus Hassice Landgravius, inscription at foot of title-page, i.e. Philip III, Landgrave of Hesse-Butzbach (1581-1643); "Bibl. Aul. Darmst. Rep. 7 Loc. 2", inscription on inside front cover, from the court library at Darmstadt; crowned monogram stamp on title-page; purchased in 1930

Philip III was interested in science and astronomy (he corresponded with Galileo and Kepler) and had an observatory as well as a fine library.