A Limited, Signed, & Engraved Mathematical Treatise, 1633
In this sumptuously illustrated book, the reader finds Joseph Furttenbach’s (1591–1667) visionary magnum opus on the mathematical arts applied to all manner of occupations. In a range from architecture, theater and garden design, pyrotechnics, military fortifications, and seafaring the author launches a bold prospect of the potential for mathematical principles to reshape the world, in many ways echoing for the German-speaking world the prior vision of John Dee in his much-celebrated “Mathematical Preface” to Euclid’s Geometry first published nearly a century earlier in 1570. This book is truly the culmination of a lifetime of work, presenting through a robust sequence of thirty-three magisterial folding and double-page etchings a mature synthesis of the prolific Furttenbach’s nine principal publications from prior decades: Newes itinerarium Italiae (1627), Halinitro-Pyrobolia, beschreibung einer newen büchsen-meisterey (1627), Architectura civilis (1628), Architectura navalis (1629), Architectura martialis (1630), Architectura universalis (1635), Architectura recreationis (1640), Architectura privata (1641), and Mechanische Reissladen (1644).
Much of the content of those publications was informed by Furttenbach’s long 1608–20 sojourn in Italy, most notably at Florence and the rich seaport of Genoa, where he absorbed the mathematical arts applied to all aspects of the built environment, including fortification design with Paolo Rizio and gun-making and pyrotechnics with Hans Veldhausen of Augsburg. He even encountered Galileo during the time he spent in Florence studying theater design with the architect Giulio Parigi. Indeed, his earliest major publication, Newes itinerarium Italiae (1627) became a standard guidebook for German travelers there. In 1620 Furttenbach returned to his native Leutkirch before finally settling in Ulm where he worked as a merchant, engineer, and from 1631 as a deputy in charge of the municipal building office, through which he supervised public building construction, urban planning, and fortification for the city.
By publishing this book in the German vernacular, Furttenbach cast a wider regional net than he would have had he published in Latin. In this way he could attract the curiosity and attention of secular princes, military elites, and other potential patrons for the sorts of large-scale and sometimes fantastical projects profiled within the pages of this book. But also this work could reach those who had never obtained a formal Latin education—an ecumenical interest that he reiterated elsewhere in his Architectura civilis (1628), which dealt with secular architecture for all classes, from aristocratic palaces to the humbler residences of merchants and burghers. The present book was in fact intended for a relatively small cadre of readers and institutional libraries who could afford to pay the princely sum of three reichthalers to obtain a copy from its highly limited edition of two hundred. Furttenbach’s expressed intention, noted in this book as well as in his personal diary (Lebenslauff, p. 269), was to appeal both to “Prince, Counts, and gentlemen” and to interested readers of modest means who might consult one of as many as one hundred copies that the author reserved as donations to supporters and educational institutions. That civic spirit is clearly expressed in the Hopkins copy of this very rare book, for bound in at the front is Furttenbach’s autograph letter signed on March 28, 1663, gifting the book to the Protestant library of his birthplace, the town of Leutkirch. The letter, with even elements of its wax seal preserved, appears alongside a neatly ruled page in which he provided a useful key to astrological symbols used in his chapter on artillery. Still further personalizations appear in Furttenbach’s hand, including corrections of various errata that had escaped the attention of the compositors of his text, for which he also apologized in the book’s introduction.
Furttenbach gained relevant experience from his many years as official Baumeister of Ulm and kind of prototypical civil engineer. The eclecticism of this book may also derive, in part, from his other life’s passion of building, arranging, and cataloguing at his home in Ulm a renowned “Rüst- und Kunstkammer,” which he says had attracted some twelve hundred visitors. Indeed, there are no fewer than sixteen sections, including all manner of architecture, military fortifications, hydraulic engineering, grottenwerck (i.e., grotto or nymphaeum construction), prospectiva (i.e., theater design), pyrotechnics, and much else. Each of these divisions is illustrated with at least one plate. The book’s handsome fold-out frontispiece synthesizes nearly all of these topics into a single, breathtaking view of Genoa, including its municipal gardens, grottoes, palazzi, theaters, and fortifications; ships gathered in the harbor amid an artillery attack; and revelers setting off fireworks in the distance. All elements of the etching, in turn, are keyed to verse and prose descriptions of the scene.
Modern scholarship has been primarily concerned with Furttenbach’s designs for theater architecture and dramatic scenography, which reflect his training in Florence under Giulio Parigi (1571–1635). Among the most compelling illustrations in this book are his proscenia and stage machinery (moving clouds, waves, ships, a whale) and materials for lighting and generating sound effects (thunder, rain, hail, etc.). Furttenbach’s persistent idiosyncrasy emerges elsewhere in his chapter on arithmetic. Though ostensibly concerned with commercial mathematics, it is in fact something more of an excursus on the principles of school construction, with a plan and view of a so-called Paradise Garden intended as an ideal location for teachers and students to hold outdoor classes. There, too, the author offers a brief discussion of bookshelf design and fabrication, and even the preparation of quills, paper, and ink. Perhaps the most striking image of all is that of an impossibly tall, castellated six-star fortification atop a massive sculpted earthwork with massive ramparts, parapets, and canon works situated just off the Ligurian coast.
—Kelsey Champagne, Earle Havens
Bibliography
Hans H. Aurenhammer, “Josef Furttenbach,” in Oxford Art Online; Jan Lazardzig, “Vitruvian Universalism: On the Order of Mechanical Knowledge in the Works of Joseph Furttenbach the Elder (1591–1667),” in C. A. Davids et al. (eds.), Rethinking Stevin, Stevin Rethinking: Constructions of a Dutch Polymath (Brill, 2020), 49–76; Hanno-Walter Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to the Present (Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 172–74; Wilhelm Reinking, Die sechs Theaterprojekte des Architekten Joseph Furtenbach, 1591–1667 (Tende, 1984); Allardyce Nicoll and John H. McDowell (eds.), The Renaissance Stage: Documents of Serlio, Sabbattini and Furttenbach (University of Miami Press, 1958); M. Berthold, “Josef Furttenbach von Leutkirch, Architekt und Ratsherr in Ulm (1591–1667),” Ulm und Oberschwaben. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst—Mitteilungen des Vereins für Kunst und Altertum in Ulm und Ober-Schwaben 33 (1953), 119–79.
