| Description | Manuscript volume, 17th century: Casimire Siemienowicz's 'Geometriae Practicae Synopsis et architecturae militans, quam vulgo fortificationem vocant, elementa' (on practical geometry and military fortifications), with many diagrams, some coloured, several full-page, and one fold-out. |
| AdminHistory | Born in Lithuania, c1600; knight; served in the Polish Royal Artillery; author of 'Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima' (Amsterdam, 1650); the proposed second part of this work was never completed; the book's subjects included pyrotechnics, rockets, and the building of firework set-pieces, and it became the standard authority on military and recreational pyrotechnics; died, c1651. His book was translated from the Latin into German in 1676 and into English (as 'The Great Art of Artillery') in 1729. |
| CustodialHistory | Inside the front cover is attached a cutting from the sale catalogue of Archbishop Tenison, July 1861. The manuscript formed part of the library of John Thomas Graves (1806-1870), mathematician and Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, whose collection included manuscripts dating from the 15th to the 19th century, relating mainly to mathematics. Formerly Graves 4984. Other pressmark: 6.g.13. |