Artillery, Seventeenth-century illustrated Italian manuscript about geometry and artillery, carta rustica

ARTILLERY

Seventeenth-century illustrated Italian manuscript about geometry and artillery

titled "Di alcuni principi di Geometria necessarij per intendere, e sapere fare spedissam[en]te tutto quello. che si appartiene ad un valoroso Bombard[ie]re", comprising mainly fifty-five full-page plates executed in pen and ink, illustrating cannons, mortars, explosives, crossbows (with explosives), hoists, winches, ballistic trajectories, diagrams and artillerymen

large folio (c.410 x 265mm.), 65 leaves, comprising 9 pages of text, 55 plates (versos blank) with a few smaller drawings laid onto the inside front cover or loosely inserted, contemporary carta rustica, binding worn with stitching working loose, some staining to lower corners

Many of the drawings in this manuscript are modelled on the engraved plates in Diego Ufano's treatise on artillery. First published in Spanish (Brussels, 1612), there does not appear to have been an edition in Italian; see lots 440 and 441 for other editions of Ufano.