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2024-02-05
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4510397
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4510397
CtY-BA
CtY-BA
1056171393
Vigevano, Guido da,
approximately 1280-approximately 1350.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr95003124
Texaurus Regis Francie
Liber acquisitionis Te[r]re Sa[n]te de ultra mare :
[Christi] no[m]i[n]e invocato : Regi Francie i[n]tytulato.
Liber acquisitionis Terre Sante de ultra mare
1375.
1
v. ([52] pages, with 2 blank pages) :
ill. ;
29 x 22 cm.
unspecified
rdacontent
unspecified
rdamedia
unspecified
rdacarrier
Guido da Vigevano (ca. 1280-ca.1349) was the personal physician to Joan of Burgundy, consort of Philip VI in the 1330s. Philip had twice pledged to lead a crusade to recover the Holy Land and, although he never did, Guido da Vigevano was so concerned how best to protect the king's life during the dangerous and unhealthy adventure of a crusade that he wrote a treatise called (in translation) Treasury of the King of France for the recovery of the Holy Land beyond the sea. The first part of this work is devoted to rules of health suitable for elderly warriors (Philip VI was then 42 years old) and the second half to siegecraft.
Guido da Vigevano's treatise on siegecraft includes a number of innovations, the most important of which was the idea of portability. Guido proposed constructing pre-fabricated sections of siege apparatus, each section small enough to be transported by horse, to compensate for the dearth of timber available in the Holy Lands. These pieces could be easily transported from to place to place and used many times. His treatise carefully described the towers and ladders, hinges, joints, bolts, ropes, and other small parts that allowed for the assembly of his designs; he comes close thus to the modern notion of interchangeable parts. In a similar vein, his treatise describes: a design for paddle wheels (to propel a portable boat) rotated by a double-compound crank; the use of wrought-iron for shafts and other structural purposes; a design for a sort of mechanical lift; a design for self-propelled battle wagon, employing a crank and a geared drive, with steerable fore-carriage; and a design for a tower windmill. However novel Guido's plans may have been, there is no evidence that any of them were ever built.
Manuscript copy of Guido Vigevano's Texaurus Regis Francie, with 16 illustrations in pen and brown ink. The manuscript, written in Latin, includes only the second the part of the Texaurus, that dealing with siege warcraft. According to the colophon, the text was copied by Martin of Aachen in the kingdom of Cyprus in the year 1375. Martin in fact claims to be the compiler (copulatus) of the work, but this is an exaggeration, as the present manuscript is an almost exact copy of Guido's treatise, the earliest complete manuscript copy of which is present in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Ms Latin 11015, ca. 1340). The present version of the Texaurus was not copied from that in the BNF (see Hall).
The manuscript includes 16 full-page drawings in pen and brown ink, plus one smaller drawing of the author on p. [2], and a small number of interlinear diagrams, also in pen and brown ink. If the drawings are relatively rudimentary in technique, they do make an attempt to clearly articulate the mechanisms of the designs proposed by Guido.
Contents (translated into English): 1. In what manner the soldiers assaulting cities, towns and castles ought to protect themselves from the arrows of the Saracens and build protective screens to be carried on horses -- 2. Of the way of making posts and brattices, for the purpose of taking cities, towns and castles, to be carried in rolls on horses -- 3. Of the way of making bridges on dry land for placing on the walls of cities and castles, to be carried on horses -- 4. Of the way to capture towers, however high they may be -- 5. Of the way to make assault-ladders and to carry them on horses -- 6. Of the way of making assaulting-castles which are erected against the walls of cities and higher than the wall and carried in pieces on horses -- 7. Of the way of making bridges over waters, carrying them in pieces on horses, and placing them in the water in one hour -- 8. Of the way of making boats for navigating all waters of the sea and of carrying them in rolls on horses -- 9. Of the way of riding upon water -- 10. Of the way in which infantry may cross great waters -- 11. Of the way of making a fighting-car [or tank], driven without the aid of wind or animals, an carried in pieces on horses, for throwing great forces into disorder -- 12. Of the making of another fighting-car, driven by the wind without animals, which rushes with great violence over the field disordering a large army with very few men, and which can be carried in pieces on horses.
An analysis of the Texaurus is available in: Hall, A. Rupert. "Guido's Texaurus, 1335." On pre-modern technology and science. Ed. Bert S. Hall and Delno C. West. Malibu: Undena, 1976. Hall includes a translation into English of the manuscript version at the BNF (Latin 11015), together with notes on where that version differs from the present YCBA manuscript.
Accompanying the manuscript is another translation into English, in typescript, by an unidentified translator. It may have been prepared for the Sotheby's sale (1960), or shortly before. The introduction to this volume includes a history of the work and the provenance of the present manuscript. The volume is shelved with the present manuscript.
The manuscript is partially reproduced (26 of 52 pages, including all of the drawings), with commentary in: Le macchine del re : il Texaurus Regis Francie, di Guido da Vigevano; trascrizione, traduzione e commento del codice lat. 11015 della Bibliothèque nationale di Parigi di Giustina Ostuni. Vigevano : Diakronia, 1993.
Provenance: Inscribed, p. [51]: C'est à moi, Prevost. Previously owned by by Conte Gugliemo Libri-Carucci (1809-1869), at which time it was bound with other manuscripts. Sold Sotheby's, (lot 347), 26 July 1862, to Sir Thomas Phillipps. Phillipps MS 16398. Sotheby's, 1960. Paul Mellon.
Text written in pen and brown ink, in a regular gothic hand; 44 lines, in two columns. Includes one large illuminated initial with a marginal extension (p. 1). Other initials and chapter-headings are in red.
On vellum.
Bound in later brown morocco.
Phillipps MS 16398.
Copyright Information
unknown
CtY-BA
http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/preservation/copyrightStatus/unk
Vigevano, Guido da,
approximately 1280-approximately 1350.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr95003124
Philip
VI,
King of France,
1293-1350.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2013131866
Siege warefare
Medieval, 500-1500.
Military weapons
Medieval, 500-1500.
Military engineering
Medieval, 500-1500.
Cranks and crankshafts
Medieval, 500-1500.
Crusades
13th-15th centuries.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85034384
Military art and science
Medieval, 500-1500.
Illuminated manuscripts.
aat
http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300265483
Ink drawings.
gmgpc
http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/graphicMaterials/tgm005399
Diagrams.
gmgpc
http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/graphicMaterials/tgm003055
Chron.
1375.
Phillipps, Thomas,
Sir,
1792-1872
Ownership.
Libri, Guillaume,
1803-1869
Ownership.
Martin,
of Aachen.
View a selection of digital images in the Yale Center for British Art's online catalogue
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:4510397
AC09262000