The art of war

The “Arte della Guerra” exhibition at the Braidense Library from January 26th to April 2nd, 2022, displayed more than a hundred volumes from the ancient collections of the Braidense Library, largely from the Fund of the Milan Jesuit College to which Father Giacomo Rho, mathematician, astronomer, missionary to China belonged, protagonist of the defense of Macao in 1622 from the assault of Dutch sailing ships by arming a battery of cannons, and from an important private collection that will make available, in addition to some volumes, a dozen cannons, bombards and other artillery instruments in use in military training schools between the 16th and 18th centuries.

The exhibition opens with late 15th-century printed reissues of classical military treatises, the works of Vitruvius, Vegetius, and Caesar published with commentaries by Renaissance architects Cesare Cesariano and Andrea Palladio. The exhibition continues with the display of treatises by the most important Italian military architects and engineers representing the Italian school of the 16th century, known in Europe as the “trace italiènne,” together with books by the leading experts on Italian military tactics and strategy of the modern era. The exhibition itinerary continues with ballistics studies, necessary for the proper use of firearms, elaborated in the 16th and 17th centuries by Italian mathematicians such as Niccolò Tartaglia, Galileo Galilei and the Jesuit Paolo Casati. The exhibition concludes with the works of the European schools of military architecture starting with Vauban and his seminal school.