“Different ways to find the first delineations of fortresses”. Italian, French, and Dutch bastions in the Trattato di Fortificatione by Guarini

Abstract

[EN]Guarini's Trattato di Fortificatione provides an up-to-date international overview of military culture and art in the field of tracing the elements of modern fortifications. The bastions, which represent one of its main elements, have been investigated in the present work through the graphic analysis and geometric decomposition of the bastions’ tracings, including the variants found in the treatise. Moreover, graphical reconstructions of all the bastions aim to discover the Guarinian vocabulary of shapes and define the shape of the bastions, the relationship between the shape of the bastion and that of the fortress, and the defensive power concerning the musket’s fire.