PBA Galleries

[xiv], 284, [4] pp. Engraved title page, plus 22 engraved plates bound at rear (1 folding), each plate tipped along the left edge to a full blank sheet so as to extend beyond the fore edge of the text block. (Folio) 33.5x21.5 cm (13x8½") modern vellum-backed paste-paper boards, spine lettered and decorated by hand, slipcase. First Edition.

Kazimierz Siemienowicz was a Polish–Lithuanian general of artillery, gunsmith, military engineer, and pioneer of rocketry. Born in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, he served the armies of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, a ruler of the Netherlands. No portrait or detailed biography of him has survived and much of his life is a subject of dispute. After contributing his expertise to several battles, Siemienowicz published Artis Magnae Artilleriae in 1650. This treatise, which discussed rocketry and pyrotechnics, remained a standard work in those fields for two centuries. Among the many plates depicting rockets, cannons, bombs, fireworks and other pyrotechnics is a design for a fire breathing dragon. Rare. Bound by Rudolf Jager, Bremen, Germany, 1945.