L'Art de fortifier, de défendre et d'attaquer les places

First bilingual French-German edition, illustrated with 71 plates and a fortification table.
Contemporary full ivory vellum binding. Smooth spine decorated with triple blind fillets, title and author in pen. Boards framed with triple blind fillets; traces of clasps. All edges blue. Six small contemporary leather bookmarks. Bavarian bookplate of the period.
Spine split with a small loss along its entire length. One joint slightly cracked (1.5cm). A small ink stain on the second board. Pages uniformly and lightly browned. Front pastedown affected by bookworm damage.

Beyond its illustration, the main interest of this work is to compare European methods of fortification and defense (French, Dutch, German, Italian and Spanish) at a time when Europe was witnessing new theories that profoundly restructured those of Antiquity on which previous approaches had relied. A Jesuit and mathematician, Dechales exercised his erudition in numerous fields (professor of navigation, military engineering, mathematics), in all disciplines neighboring mathematics, notably music.