An anonymous French manuscript treatise on fortification, with 32 folding colour drawings showing not only fortifications but also military buildings such as a powder magazine, arsenal, etc., as well as gates, bridges, etc. Some explicitly note that they follow Jean Errard (1554-1610), Antoine de Ville (1596-1656), Blaise François, Comte de Pagan (1604-1665), Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (1633-1707) and Menno van Coehorn (1634-1704), the greatest 17th-century French and Dutch masters of the art of fortification. The fortified cities shown include Saint-Martin-de-Ré, Strasbourg and Thionville. Each of the four parts has its own title with Traite des fortifications followed by the subtitle for the relevant part.
In about a dozen pages, the tops of the capitals or flourishes of a large title or heading word have been slightly shaved by the binder and there are occasional minor smudges, small stains or spots, but the manuscript is otherwise in very good condition. The binding is rubbed, the hinges cracked and the spine damaged, but the sewing supports remain intact and nearly all of the tooling on the spine is clear. An interesting and well illustrated treatise on fortification and military architecture.