BOILLOT (Joseph)
Modelles artifices of fire and various instruments of war with the means to use them. To besiege, defeat, surprise, and defend all places. Useful and necessary to all those who make profession of the weapons. Chaumont-en-Bassigny, Quentin Mareschal, 1598.
In-4 of 1 engraved title-frontispice, (4) ff. 204 pp. misfigured 203, without missing, (1) blank f. : soft vellum (contemporary binding).
First edition of the first book printed in Chaumont-en-Bassigny (Haute-Marne).
The printer and bookseller Quentin Mareschal practiced in Chaumont from 1598 to 1615, before establishing himself in the Orléans and Poitou regions.
"This book of pyrotechnics, so rare and so curious, is indeed the first book of these times of troubles and tumults; it was after the League, and the author had found himself actively involved in the disorders of the province; he was a Langrois" (Deschamps, col. 247)
The illustration includes an architectural title-frontispiece, signed with the monogram IP, and 90 copper-engraved plates in the text by the author himself representing all kinds of instruments: screw instruments, for breaking bars, pulling, pushing, lifting, measuring, etc, ladders, systems for securing doors, various pieces of artillery, crossbows, bows, grenades, etc., recipes and techniques for the manufacture of powders, etc.
Joseph Boillot served mainly as an engineer in the armies of King Henry IV, to whom the work is dedicated. In charge of the magazin des salpestres & poudres of the city of Langres, he affirms, the ocasion of the wars being so often renewed in our France, to have devoted a part of his career to the research and exercise of the military arts: I have amplified many new inventions of various instruments, compositions of various powders, & artificial fires, & of other similar industries : De façon que pour assaillir, ou défendre villes, chasteaux, & autres places, & sommairement tout ce que le généreux guerrier peut désirer, il se trouvera icy de quoy se contenter.
A few imperfections at the time of printing: some pages reserved for engravings were not printed (nine in all), the inking is uneven - the coppers being then often badly wiped -, a plate printed by mistake was covered by another (p. 76), etc.
The rusticity of the edition enhances the charm of this very rare book.
Tears and tears on the back of the vellum, endpapers loose, frontispiece and dedication leaf unstuck. Some spotting.
The copy is preserved in a modern black morocco slipcase.
(Jacques Betz, BBA, Chaumont-en-Bassigny, p. 61.- Baudrier, t. XI, p. 519.- Brun, p. 138.- Cockle, n° 933.- Lepreux, Gallia typographica, t. II, pp. 350-352.- Robert-Dumesnil, t. VI, pp. 87-100, n° 65-154.)
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