The illustration of treaties of military art, forms in Madrid and conserved in the National Library, 1500-1671. Some considerations on authors of texts, the engravings end the specialised press, and collectors

Abstract

One of the fundamental aspects of the Modern Treatrises, and Treatrises of Military Art, in particular, is the Illustration. By its clarifying value of speculative contents, by its aesthetic value, symbolic and plastic, the stamp of texts of the Renaissance was elevated half in iconographical model of the rest of the Liberal Arts and in a fast one of cultural diffusion. Reason why to the images of military scope they talk about, indeed, all the previous mentioned qualities served to promote the contents of the call military revolution, cradle in the new architectonic profile of the warlike fortification, that is the embanked Bastion, in the explosive Artillery, the tactics of the Swarm of Infantry of the professional army, as much as in a theoretical background that was evolving from the artistic pre-eminence to the planning purely scientist, already exceeded the 1600 border, who determined, in addition, the pragmatic specialisation in the figure of the Military Engineer. In this work it is tried to unravel the subject of the origin of such illustrations, within the framework of the History of the Spanish Engraving, the Madrilenian Presses, as well as the compilation of collectors of specific treatries happiness, thanks to which the numerous set of bottoms, conserved could be established in the National Library of Madrid.