Francesco di Giorgio Martini's Treatise on Engineering and Its Plagiarists

Bibliographic Data

ID5122817
AuthorsLadislao Reti, Francesco Di Giorgio Martini
Year1963
Volume4
Issue3
Pages287
Publication date1963-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTechnology and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3100858
OpenAlexW2318933381
LanguageEN
Citations received7

FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO MARTINI (1439-1501), the great Sienese painter, sculptor, and architect, was also interested, as were several of his contemporary fellow craftsmen, in the study and development of mechanical devices. This was in accordance with the still flourishing Vitruvian tradition. His engineering treatise, still little known, is mainly dedicated to civil and military architecture and contains hundreds of small but perfectly drawn illustrations showing war machines of every kind, as well as cranes, mills, pumps, etc. Although a number of studies have been published about the artistic and architectural work of Francesco di Giorgio,' his work in technology has only occasionally been noticed. Francesco's Trattato di Architectura is preserved in several original manuscripts: a first draft in the Biblioteca Comunale in Siena (No. S. IV. 4); an elaborated version is in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence (No. II. I. 141),2 the presentation copy dedicated to Federico de Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, is in the former library of the Duke of Genoa (Codice Saluzziano No. 148, parchment). There is also an incomplete manuscript that once belonged to Leonardo da Vinci. This latter is of particular interest because Leonardo added marginal notes and sketches; the manuscript is now in the Laurenziana Library in

Art · Humanities · Architecture and Art History Studies · Mechanics and Biomechanics Studies · Philosophy

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