Four Books of the Elements of Military Architecture

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Original title: Elementorum architecturae militaris libri IV A Latin handbook of fortification in four books, printed as a small octavo by the Elzevier press at Leiden and dedicated to Frederick, then duke of Schleswig-Holstein and later Frederick III of Denmark-Norway. The author was born in Silesia and is styled a native of Breslau. The treatise presents fortress design as a mathematical art of both fortifying and attacking fortified places. It distinguishes an exact geometric, trigonometric and tabulated mode of design for permanent works from a rapid mechanical mode, using cord and stakes, for irregular sites. The four books treat: - delineation of fortress plans; - orthography and ichnography (elevation and ground-plan), with the six-foot height of a man as module and musket range as the line of defence; - stereometry and sciagraphy, including earthwork volumes costed in Holland florins and reckoned in days of labour, together with gates, guardhouses and citadels; - the mechanical mode and offence, covering siege lines, approach trenches, saps and castrametation. A prooemium traces the history of fortification from Cain and Nimrod to the invention of gunpowder and its perfection in the Netherlands. It declares the safety of subjects to be the supreme law of the art and condemns citadels used for tyranny, holding that they should be demolished once their cause ceases. The work closes with a Virgilian epilogue. A French version, La Nouvelle Fortification, followed in 1645. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

Document excerpt

ELEMENTORVM ARCHITECTVRÆ MILITARIS. LIBRI IV. Quorum 1. De Delineationibus. 2. De Orthographia & Ichnographia. 3. De Stereometria & Sciagraphia. 4. De Mechanico modo, & de Offensione. ex conatu NICOLAI GOLDMANNI Vratislaviensis Silesii. LVGD. BATAVOR. Ex Officina Elseviriana. -------------------------------------------------------- cilo loc XLIII.