A Beautiful Book of Terrible Things: Artillery, 1623

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 522

Praxis Artolleriae Pyrotechnicae, printed in Osnabruck by Tilman Buchholtz for Johann Georg Schwaender, is one of those beautiful books of horrible things; beautifully designed and illustrated, with magnificent images of the horrifying necessaries that bind and tear nations and people.  Flying and land-based weapons o fall sorts filled these pages:  rocket, grenades, land mines, plus pyrotechnics and fireworks.  As jolly as this implement might seem, it is not a firework, at least not one for entertainment:  it was meant to dismember or kill.  Those "arrows" on the ring are not showing the direction of the flight of the module--they are spears.  This was a lethal weapon of the highest order--pretty, not-so-simple, and deadly.

Some other beautiful terribles, published to about the year 1600, include: 

Roberto VALTURIO 1472 Vérone De re militari

Niccolo Fontana TARTAGLIA  1537  La Nova Scientia

Vanoccio BIRINGUCCIO  1540 : De La Pirotechnia

Conrad HAAS  1556 : Kunstbuch

Girolamo CATANEO 1564 : Opera nuova di fortificare, offendere et difendere, et far gli alloggiamenti campali.

Thomas DIGGES  1579 Arithmetical military treatise.

Gabriello BUSCA 1584 Istruzione dei Bombardieri.   1585  Della espugnatione et difesa delle fortezze.  1606 :Della Architeltura militare.  

Luys COLLADO 1586 Practica manuale di artegliera.

Jean BEAVIE 1591 Liège La pyrotechnie militaire

Daniel DAVELOURT  1597 Briefve Instructions Sur Le Fait De L'artillerie de France.
- 1606  L’Artillier.
- 1608 : L'Arsenal et le magasin d'artillerie.
- 1617  L'Art et la conduite des eaux sur le fait de l'Artillerie de  et ses dépendances

Joseph BOILLOT.  1598 Modelles, artifices de feu et divers instrumens de guerre 

Gabriele BUSCA da Milano 1605 Della espugnatione et difesa delle fortezze.
1598 Istruttione de' bombardieri.  

Eugenio GENTILINI  1598 Instruttione di artglieri.

David RIVAULT de FLURENCE 1605 Les elemens de l’artillerie concernans tant la theorie que la pratique du canon.
1608 L’invention description & demonstration d’une nouvelle artillerie qui ne se charge que d’air ou d’eau pure, & à neantmoins une incroiable force. Plus d’une nouvelle facon de pouldre a canon tres-violente qui se faict d’or, par un excellent & rare artifice non communiqué jusques à present. L’histoire du progrez & des premiers usages des armes à feu tant recentes qu’anciennes, est deduitte en l’avant-propos.  

Leonhard ZUBLER 1608  Nova geometrica pyrobolia - Neuwe geometrische Büchsenmeisterery.