Didier - Élémens de Fortification, et de l'Attaque et de la Défense - 1786

51 LARGE FOLDED PLATES – BASTIONS, MOATS, RAVELINS AND SIEGE WORKS, ON THE EVE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Important French treaty on military architecture and fortification engineering published in Paris in 1786 by Grégoire Didier Trincano, dedicated to the principles of permanent fortification and the techniques of assault and defense of fortresses. The work represents a significant synthesis of French military science in the late eighteenth century, developed in the wake of Vauban’s innovations and subsequently refined through an increasingly mathematical and geometrical approach. Trincano systematically addresses the design of bastions, curtain walls, moats, ravelins, covered ways, advanced works, and defensive systems, while paralleling the techniques of siege, trench opening, approach to fortifications, and defense organization. The iconographic apparatus is exceptional: the third volume is entirely devoted to an atlas of 51 large copper-engraved plates, folded many times, with plans, sections, elevations, and technical diagrams of the main fortified works. Published a few years before the French Revolution, the treatise documents one of the most advanced moments of Ancien Régime technical-military culture.

WHY TO BUY
3 COMPLETE VOLUMES WITH ATLANTEAN PLATE atlas! Two text volumes and a rare volume with 51 large folded plates.
51 ENGRAVINGS OF MILITARY ENGINEERING! Bastions, moats, ravelins, trenches, plans and sections of fortifications.
IN THE VAUBAN TRADITION! A grand synthesis of the French science of siege and fortress defense.
PARIS 1786! An exceptionally charming technical document published on the eve of the French Revolution.

MARKET VALUE
Centennial treatises on military architecture complete with their atlases maintain solid international interest, especially when the graphical apparatus is preserved intact. In the present exemplar the principal collecting element consists of the third volume with all 51 folded copper plates, which completes the two text volumes and allows a visual follow-through of the constructions and techniques described by Trincano. For a complete set across all three volumes and in good overall condition, a realistic retail value is in the €900–€1,800 range, with possibilities of higher offers for copies that are especially fresh, with well-preserved plates and high-quality bindings.

PHYSICAL / CONDITION
Three volumes: two text tomes and a volume of plates. Volume I: pp. (2), 30, 376, (2). Volume II: pp. (2), (2), 10, 316, 2 nn. Third volume containing 51 numbered copper-engraved plates, folded many times, depicting plans, sections, elevations, fortifications, defensive works and schemes related to siege techniques. Contemporary full-cloth bindings with decorated paper on the boards, with manuscript spine labels. Natural wear, small losses and normal signs of use compatible with age. The folded plates may show creases, small tears or marginal defects. Possible foxing, browning, halos and time stains on the papers. As for all old volumes, slight defects or restorations not expressly mentioned may be present.

FULL TITLES & AUTHORS
Grégoire Didier Trincano.
Élémens de fortification, et de l’attaque et de la défense des places.
Paris: chez Cellot, Didot fils aîné, Jombert et Royez, 1786.
Three volumes.
Two text volumes and an atlas with 51 folded copper-engraved plates.
Volume I: pp. (2), 30, 376, (2).
Volume II: pp. (2), (2), 10, 316, 2 nn.
Volume III: 51 plates numbered.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Grégoire Didier Trincano was a military engineer, mathematician and technical author active in France in the second half of the eighteenth century, during the peak period of fortifications and bastioned warfare. His training falls within the great French tradition of military engineering, the discipline which after Vauban had taken a central role in organizing European armies and in training officers of the Geniu. Trincano devoted particular attention to the systematic teaching of fortification, seeking to unite geometry, architecture, ballistics, and siege practice in an organic treatise. In his Élémens de fortification the theoretical description is continually accompanied by concrete applications, plans and sections that permit understanding not only how the defensive works were constructed, but also how they were to be attacked or protected. His work testifies to the growing professionalization of the military engineer in the eighteenth century, a figure now endowed with highly specialized mathematical and technical training.

RARITY
The Élémens de fortification become particularly interesting when preserved in their complete two-volume text and separate atlas structure. Precisely the third volume, consisting of the 51 large folded plates, is the element most susceptible to dispersion, separation or mutilation and thus represents the principal factor of material rarity of the set. The engravings were tools for practical use by students and engineers and could easily be damaged along the folds. A complete set of all three volumes, however, presents the entire system conceived by the author: theory, mathematical application and graphical representation of fortifications. The volume is particularly appealing to collections dedicated to military history, architecture, applied mathematics, technical cartography, and eighteenth-century engineering.

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE
In the eighteenth century, fortification was among the most sophisticated applications of mathematics and geometry to warfare. The French tradition, marked by Vauban, had transformed siege and defense of fortresses into quasi-scientific procedures based on distances, firing angles, wall profiles, and rational sequencing of offensive works. Trincano fully belongs to this culture. His treatise shows how bastions, ravelins, moats, trenches, and covered ways were integrated parts of a complex system designed to control terrain and slow the enemy’s advance. The 51 plates allow a visual follow-through of this logic and constitute an extraordinary document of Ancien Régime technical military culture. The work appeared in 1786, just three years before the French Revolution, at a moment when European warfare was about to undergo profound transformations. The treatise thus documents one of the last great moments of classic bastioned fortification before the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Catalogue général de la Bibliothèque nationale de France.
WorldCat.
ICCU – Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale.
Jordan, bibliographic surveys dedicated to military architecture.
French bibliographic surveys dedicated to fortification, military engineering and eighteenth-century technical treatises.