The fourth part of this Description of a new system of gunnery deals extensively
with artillery pieces, bombs, and fireworks.
Photograph 8a: Title-page.
Photograph 8b: Typical layout
of a seventeenth-century fireworks
display featuring rockets, fire-wheels
and mortars.
Joseph Furttenbach Halinitro-Pyrobolia. Beschreibung einer newen
buchsen-meisterey, nemlichen: grundlicher Bericht, wie der Salpeter, Schwefel,
Kophlen, unnd das Pulfer zu praepariren, zu probieren, auch langwirrig gut
zu behalten: das Fewerwerch zur Kurtzweil und Ernst zu laboriren...
Ulm: Jonas Saur, 1627.
This early German artillery manual, Description of a new system of gunnery
and through instruction for the preparation of gunpowder from saltpeter,
sulphur and charcoal, and for testing and preserving it, either for amusement
or more serious purposes, contains 44 copperplate engravings of fortifications,
measuring devices, rockets, shells and other explosive devices many of which
were either invented or first described by Furttenbach.
The volume is open to a double-page layout of a typical 17th-century fireworks
display, featuring various types of fixed and flying rockets, mortars for
heavy shells, and a Catherine wheel.
