The Great Art of Artillery, Part One

TO THE READER.

...of every kind, fountains, and many other things. Concerning these, we have given beautiful and never-before-seen rules on how, indeed, beauty, grace, and fair order—as well as all security in conducting, composing, binding, emitting, and arranging the fires as is proper—ought to be observed in both the design and the economy of the work. All these things are illustrated with beautiful histories and antiquities. The military works are pots, vials, flasks, urns, crowns and garlands, circles or spheres, cylinders, sacks, tuns or barrels, arrows, spears, and tubes. But it must be observed at this point that we compare and weigh all our military works with the works of the ancients. By bringing forth the testimonies of authors, we clearly explain where ours are surpassed by the ancients, and vice-versa, or what may even now be used with the greatest advantage in war from the works of the ancients. We confirm this with many histories and examples, both new and old, in such a way that we propose this Art as if it were the ancient within the new, and the new within the ancient. Our main care, however, is for our own Art, the shadow of which was seen long ago by the ancients.

The SECOND PART of this work, which is already prepared and will follow, will consist of seven books. The FIRST will be about Cannon: among which, in the first place, we will describe with a very short method all kinds of ancient cannons, such as battering rams, ballistae, catapults, scorpions, and other things of that kind. We will explain their origin, inventors, use, and power from the testimonies of authors, and we will elucidate them with figures. Then, subsequently, we will weave the history of our modern military cannons; namely, how they were invented, by whom, and when; by whom they were first usurped; and how they have been increasingly cultivated through so many centuries to these our times. We will also describe what names each is called by various peoples, both long ago and now.

We will also sufficiently explain the proportion of the same, both ancient and modern, in length (concerning which we have also written new rules), thickness, the size of the orifices or balls, and weight; and we will teach the symmetry and beauty of all parts and ornaments. There will be many things here about metals and their nature and alloys, or mixtures of one with another, so that military cannons may be cast both beautiful and firm. Many observations on casting them, preparing molds, acceleration of liquefaction, or preparing for the easier melting or fluidity of the same, will also look to this. Nor will we exclude leather or wooden cannons; and if at any time a previous age has played with various forms of these, there will be given a place for us to speak.

Then, afterward, when we have come to the use of cannons, many things will be proposed about the method of testing cannons already cast, and knowing whether they can bear a certain and just measure of powder; and this, as much from the thickness as from the probity of the metal and the ordered elaboration. Afterward, about the investigation of the weight of cannons by various methods, without weighing machines, so that from this may be known both the price of the cannons themselves and the number of horses, oxen, or men required to transport them wherever one pleases. Also, about the direction of cannons according to the rules of the art; about the causes of faulty firing; about the operation of cannons and the quantity of powder for each, according to the length and thickness of the cannon and the weight of the ball; about the artificial instruments pertaining to the elevation and direction of cannons; about certain rules according to which cannons are elevated and depressed to a certain angle with the horizon and the perpendicular, given distances, or vice-versa, given the elevation of the cannon, by which art it may be made known to what distance the cannonball will arrive, unless the medium or some moving object impedes it. Here, many natural questions will also be added concerning the discharge of cannons, and countless other things which will be explained in their own chapters.

The SECOND book of the same part will teach the reasons for military mortars, from which grenades and pyrotechnic globes of all kinds are accustomed to be ejected. Namely, how they were invented, and whether any machine among the ancients had an effect similar to them. Then we will submit their various forms (among which a new and hitherto unseen method of making a multiple mortar will be shown), ornaments, and the graceful proportions of all parts. Also, we will show their use, and how they are to be handled and directed. To this, the rules from which tables of shots are to be constructed, pertaining to the elevations of mortars and cannons, will also look. Also, how grenades and other pyrotechnic globes...