VENN, Thomas. Military & Maritine [sic] Discipline in three Books. Book I. Military Observations or Tacticks put into Practice for the Exercise of Horse and Foot; …….

Lessons of the Civil War

VENN, Thomas. Military & Maritine [sic] Discipline in three Books. Book I. Military Observations or Tacticks put into Practice for the Exercise of Horse and Foot; … By Captain Thomas Venn. Book II. An exact Method of Military Architecture, the Art of Fortifying Towns; ... Rendred into English by John Lacey, out of the Works of the late Learned Mathematician Andrew Tacquet. Together with Corrections made by the Count de Pag'an and Sr Sam. Moreland's Methods of Delineating all Manner of Fortifications. Book III. The Compleat Gunner in three Parts, ... Translated out of Casimir, Diego, Ussano and Hexam, &c. To which is added the Doctrine of Projects applied to Gunnery by Galilæus and Torricellio. And Observations out of Mersennus and other Authors. London: E. Tyler and R. Holt for Rob. Pawlet, Tho. Passinger and Benj. Harlock. 1672.

Three parts in one vol., small folio. Contemporary calf, blind double rule border to boards, spine blind-ruled in compartments, with later gilt lettering, marbled edges, endpapers renewed; pp. [xvii], 206, [2]; [iv], 68; [iv], 86, [2, blank], 87-88, [2, blank]; [ii], 4, 3-25, [ii], 63-75; title in red and black, engraved frontispiece, additional engraved title-page, 13 engraved plates, 2 full-page in-text engraved illustrations (sometimes called “plates”), small in-text engravings and woodcuts, in-text typographical diagrams; extremities a little worn, hinges repaired; pp. 11, 15 and 119 in 1st part with flaws to corners, pp. 51-52 with flawed margins and old paper repairs (loss of page numbers), 3Z2 with tear (old repair), one plate cropped at lower margin (3 cm of image missing), variable light toning, a few minor spots, two preliminary pages with old calculations in pencil; overall a good and complete copy.

First edition, uncommon, of this illustrated treatise on military tactics, strategy, surveying and ballistics.

Virtually no information is known about Thomas Venn beyond this work, published twelve years after the restoration of Charles II and likely informed by the author’s own experience of the English Civil War campaigns. In the preface he declares that he sought “nothing but to shew how necessary the readyness and use of Armes is, and of men to be well exercised in them”. His remarks echoed contemporary anxieties over national defence and foreshadowed the eventual establishment of a standing British Army in 1707. Venn also engages with leading scientific authorities such as Galileo Galilei and the French polymath Marin Mersenne, and even devotes a chapter to comparing the velocity of sound to that of a bullet.

ESTC R25827.

#2122393