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MATHEMATICS FOR THE CANON OPERATOR, WITH 7 ENGRAVINGS
CLAESZ., Willem. Arithmetische, ende Geometrische Practijcke der Bosshieterye [sic]. Waer inne gheleert ende aengeghewsen wort, alle het ghene dat een constapel soo te water als te lande sonderlinghe van noode is te weten. ... soo wel voor de gene die niet cyferen en kunnen, als voor de ghene die het kennen.
Rotterdam, Jan Wolffersz. (Vleyser), 1641. Small 4to. With 1 folding engraved plate (15.5 x 23.5 cm), 6 engravings in the text plus a repeat on the title-page (1 full-page and most 2/3-page), 13 woodcut diagrams in the text and 3 built up from rules, letterpress tables of numbers, 1 woodcut tailpiece and 4 woodcut initial letters (2 series). Contemporary vellum.
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Rare first edition of a well-illustrated practical handbook of military ballistics and all other mathematics that one needs to use a canon (both on land and at sea), intended (as the title explicitly notes) both for those who know how to do arithmetic and those who don’t. It also covers the calculation of the amount of gunpowder needed and the making of quadrants and other instruments. It is dedicated to the directors of the West India Company’s Rotterdam Chamber. The engraved illustrations show the quadrants, measuring staffs and other equipment used for positioning and sighting, the canons themselves (the folding plate with a measured drawing plus a view of the canon being pulled by 32 men), views showing their positioning around fortifications and ships, and siege equipment. The woodcut illustrations are mostly line diagrams. Christiaan Huygens owned a copy. A second edition appeared in 1675. We have located only seven other copies.
The printer is not identified, but the initials and the large bear tailpiece are best known for their earlier use by William Brewster’s English Separatist (so-called “Pilgrim”) press at Leiden in the years 1616 to 1619. Though traditionally called “woodcuts,” they were actually thin metal sand-castings made from woodcut patterns and mounted on wooden bases. The initials are perhaps the first made by this technique to be distributed on the open market, so that more than one printing office could use them. In a note at the end, Claesz. defends himself against charges that he "stole" his information from the 1637 Principles of the Art Militarie by Henry Hexham, former quartermaster of the English regiments in the Netherlands, noting that he only later saw the work and has borrowed its examples on two pages (he also notes the forthcoming Dutch edition, which appeared in 1642 and 1643).
With an early owner's name on an endleaf: "A: M: Leetebuer"(?) i.e. Ledeboer(?). In very good condition, with only minor water stains in two quires and a small marginal stain in one leaf. The binding is also slightly stained, but in very good condition. A rare and well-illustrated practical handbook of military mathematics.
