Ivsti LipsI Poliorcetic[o]n, sive, De machinis, tormentis, telis, libri qvinqve : ad historiarum lucem

Lipsius, Justus, 1547-1606, Borcht, Petrus van der, 1545-1608 · 1596 · Antverpiæ : Ex Officina Plantiniana, apud Viduam, & Ioannem Moretum · 29 pictures

Justus Lipsius's 1596 Latin treatise on siege engines and war machines, printed at Antwerp by the Plantin press with illustrations attributed to Petrus van der Borcht, written for scholars of classical military history. The engravings show fortifications, battering rams under testudo shelters, catapults, a ballista, a siege tower and ground plans of walled sites, each captioned with a Latin label. A designer could take from them the dense hatched-line engraving style, with its clustered figures, shadowed stone walls and small labelled diagrams.

Engines of war

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