Marolois, The Art of Fortification, Amsterdam, 1638, vellum

MAROLOIS, SAMUEL

The Art of Fortification, of Architecture Militaire... revewed, augmented and corrected by Albert Girard Mathematician... Translated out of French... by Henry Hexam. Amsterdam: for Jan Jansson, 1638

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, folio (305 x 204mm.) 2 parts in one volume, engraved title page, 42 DOUBLE-PAGE ENGRAVED PLATES (numbered 1-40, plates 14 and 17 duplicated in the foliation), double-page table at the end, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, contemporary vellum, slight water-staining at the beginning and end, minor edge-tears to preliminaries and first few leaves of text, abrasions from slight water damage to lower edges of covers

This edition of the work by the Dutch engineer and mathematician Samuel Marolois (?1572-1627/8) is generally regarded as the first proper scientific treatment of the art of fortification to appear in English. The original French was published in 1614 as part of the author's Oeuvres Mathématicques (see lot 302).

Henry Hexham states in the dedication to this work that he considers the three parts of his The principles of the art militarie to be "defective and incompleate, unlesse a fourth be added thereunto, which is the excellent art of fortification. To this effect, I have translated... the workes of... Mr. Samuell Marolois, and Mr. Albert Girard... upon this subject". The engraved title-page is from the Amsterdam Dutch edition of 1627.

LITERATURE:

Cockle 139; ESTC S101439 [4 copies only]; STC 17451