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

Lipsius, Justus, 1547-1606 · 1625 · Antuerpiæ : Ex Officina Plantiniana, apud Balthasarem Moretum, & Viduam Ioannis Moreti, & Io. Meursium. · 31 pictures

Justus Lipsius's 1625 Latin treatise on ancient siege engines, printed at Antwerp by the Plantin office for scholars of military history. Its pages are copper-engraved plates of catapults, rams, ladders and winches with lettered keys, and a designer might borrow their crisp hatched linework, precise mechanical diagrams and labelled schematic layouts.

Engines of war

Internet Archive · Getty Research Institute · Public domain (published before 1931) · More from this library