Descrizione

Small 4to. 3 parts with separate title-pages but continous pagination. (8), 126 pp., final blank leaf. With 30 woodcut illustrations and diagrams in the text, one double-page-sized, another showing a variety of components. Contemporary limp vellum. First edition, rare. This manual intended "for purposes of instruction at the Venetian gunnery school" (Jähns), the only known work by Gentilini, saw four subsequent editions under varying titles ("Instruttione di artiglieri", "Il perfetto bombardiere") up to 1626. The illustrations depict cannons, ballistics, and plans of fortresses. Schiavina appears to have been either a teacher of gunnery or a writer on the same, but nothing is known about his work. - Binding somewhat soiled, spine cracked. Figure "5" inscribed to upper cover. Interior occasionally waterstained. From the collection of Thomas Fremantle, 3rd Baron Cottesloe (1862-1956), commander of the Territorial Army and president of the Society for Army History Research. No other copy in auction records. - Cockle 669. Jähns 657. Edit16 20670. OCLC 38739209. Cf. Graesse III, 50 (1598 ed.).