( 1504 - 1577 )
Architettura militare [...] illustrata da Luigi Marini. Roma, da’ torchi di Mariano de Romanis e figli, 1810. 2 volumes in grand folio, 778 x 540 mm. The first 3 volumes of text are missing. The volumes on sale are the last 2 volumes of the publication containing the engraved copper plates with an extended format of 778x1080 mm. In volume IV, numbered plates I-XLIX, in volume V numbered plates L-CIV. They are all engraved by Pietro Ruga and Giovanni Battista Cipriani, with dates varying from 1805 to 1809. Binding in half leather and sponged calfskin, with defects and shortcomings in the spines and boards. Lot not liable to be returned. One year after the death of De Marchi (1575), a Francesco Marchi “Architettura Militare” was printed in Venice from the typography of Francesco Franceschi (all commentators agree in defining it without date or place). Subsequent reprints were made throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. also circulating under different authorship; testifying a growing fortune in the late eighteenth century, and to remedy an alleged shortage of copies, in 1810 the architect L. Marini edited the present reprint of the treatise, in five volumes in real folio with a giant format, which were naturally dedicated "to the Majesty of Napoleon I". De Marchi's work was innovative in several respects, but probably the most important proved to be the combination of fortification and urban fabric, studied on the different types of territory, mountains, plain, marina, island, because for the author the art to fortify "proceeds from nature", and must therefore exploit the orographic resources of the land, without overriding the aesthetic aspect of the whole. He gave great importance to the study of building materials but above all to the design and scale models, to be followed scrupulously, to obtain the best result. "The scientific importance of this work, and the additions made by Marini, the splendor of the edition, make it rare, sought after and highly appreciated by bibliographers" (Riccardi). For an exhaustive study of the work, consult Carlo Promis, in Misc. Of Italian history 4 (1863) 632-68. Cockle, 798 p.207; Fara, The system and the city, 159-161; Riccardi, II, 111. (5)
