A bibliography of English military books up to 1642 and of ...

interesting comparison between the crossbow and the hand-gun.^
Like Santini's, it has never been printed. In 1452 Leonardo Da
Vinci was born, and with him begins the true modern science of
artillery. It is difficult to justly appreciate " the great pioneer of
modern thought." Until recently, his works have been shut up
in the original MSS., and, although these have now been edited,
the suggestions and sketches relating to military affairs scattered
through them have never been brought together. The range of
his knowledge was wide beyond his time ; while his contemporaries
were stumbling in the old worn tracks, he had entered on the new
paths. Half a century before Tartaglia he wrote on the flight of
projed:iles; in the theory of gunnery he was a hundred years in
advance of his time.^ And yet it is improbable that his manuscripts
were ever in circulation, and the extent of his
influence cannot be
determined. In the Atlantic MS. alone are two hundred and
seventy-five designs ; the greater number corresponding exaftly to
what he offered to do for Lodovico il Moro in the way of engines
of war, fortifications, etc.* One of them represents a mortar,
and it may be that he was the inventor of this piece of artillery,
or, at least, that he endeavoured to improve it.* He died in 15 19.
In the theory of gunnery the immediate successor of Da Vinci was
Tartaglia, and of Tartaglia, the almost forgotten Spaniard, Alaba,
whose tables, though they are very far from giving the true ranges
of a projediile, are, nevertheless, better than any that could be
formed on the principles of the Italian mathematician.^ He, in
his turn, gave place to Galileo, who was the third mathematician
of note to write on the flight of projed:iles,and the first to thoroughly
• take into account the resistance of the air. Between the printing
of Tartaglia's "Nova Scientia " in 1537 and the establishment of
'
Promis. Santini, in 1452, uses the same arguments in favour of the bow as
Smythe uses in 1590.
' Capt. H. J.
W. Jervis, « Our Engines of War", London, 1859, 8", p. 45.
' Promis. The letter was written about 1483.
* Ayala.
Vincente de los Rios, "Discurso sobre los illustres autores e inventores de
artilleria", Madrid, 1767, 8", p. 26,
XX