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THE AUTHOR OF THE WORK

TO THE READERS

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MANY & diverse have been the causes (most affectionate Reader) which urged me to reveal these labors of mine to the world & send them into the light. The first of these was the common sentence of the Philosopher, who says:

Men should not be content with being born into this world only for themselves, but also to benefit & assist others.

The second was my consideration that, due to the long peace of our times, the use & exercise of artillery has been declining, having almost come into oblivion in Italy. The third reason, & the most effective of all, was seeing the greater part of the libraries of the world adorned with the immense labors of writers of all nations, who have written, some on the method of fortifying lands & cities, others on the storming of them with artillery, & some on one matter of military affairs, & others on another; yet one does not find a single page written by Spanish authors, even though many of them can reasonably be considered masters of the military exercise; & who, with weapons in hand, soldiering through a great part of the world, have brought it under their dominion. This comes from the fact that the Spanish have always been as easy & prompt in performing any difficult enterprise as they have been slow & lazy in writing about them. Finding myself, therefore (most affectionate Reader), employed in the Royal service of the Majesty of the Great Philip, King of Spain, & appointed as Engineer of his Royal army in Lombardy: & being, through long practice & no small study, somewhat instructed in the exercise of artillery, & considering that this is today the nerve & bulwark of our military; & also seeing the great scarcity of Bombardiers, caused by the long peace (as has been said) that exists in our times, & by the confusion of the books on artillery written by men without any experience; & in order not to incur the common defect of negligence of many Spanish men who could have written much better than I about this matter, such as Count Pietro Navarro, the first inventor of mines, & who by means of them, & with the machine of artillery, added so many cities & provinces to the Crown of Spain; & another General of artillery, Luigi Pizaño; & Captain Ferrante di Acosta, my dearest friend: who in our times in different parts of the world have been found planting so many batteries & storming so many cities & fortresses that it would be difficult to count them all; for this reason, I set myself to write the present work, titled Practical Manual of Artillery; in which will be found many & diverse operations, various & exquisite secrets, with most beautiful methods of firing, with the true demonstration of figures, & other most important things which, in naval days as well as in land operations, it pertains to the General of Artillery, Captains, Gentlemen, Master Gunners, & Bombardiers to employ. I know well, dear Reader, that I could with reason be accused of temerity & arrogance; because, being Spanish, I have set myself to write in the Italian language, which in itself is most sweet & beautiful, with a style so clumsy & rough, as anyone might judge. To which I reply, that those same reasons which give them motive to criticize me, in me are laudable, for these reasons. The first is, because by writing in the Italian language, I manifest the love that I have for the Italian people, & for their