APPIER, Jean [called Hanzelet]. La Pyrotechnie de Hanzelet Lorrain où sont representez les plus rares & les plus appreuuez secrets des machines & des feux d’artifice… Au Pont-à-Mousson, I. Gaspard, 1630.
4to [246 x 180 mm] of (4) ll., 264 pp. With an engraved frontispiece, numerous etched illustrations (including several full-page) in text. Some browning and stains. Contemporary limp vellum, handwritten title on the spine, ties.
New and augmented edition of Appier’s ‘Recueil de machines militaires’, an important and influential pyrotechnical manual. Berlin Kat. 3295; Cockle 938; Philip A140.4.
Appier had first published this work on pyrotechnical military devices in 1620, in collaboration with the surgeon Francois Thybourel.
”There was an evident jealousy between the joint authors. Thybourel the surgeon (the engraver) was employed by Appier, and yet Appier managed as engraver to get his name first in the first issue (of the 1620 edition), a proceeding evidently resented by his partner, and amended in the next (second issue of the 1620 edition). Ultimately, however, Appier dit Hanzelet got the upper hand, and his name alone appears in the much finer edition of 1630 (= the present edition). Appier’s influence on subsequent pyrotechnic works is immense” (Cockle).
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The work is illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and numerous etched illustrations (including several full-page) in text.
