BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE



Author(s)

Dögen, Matthias
Poirier, Élie (translator)
Matham, Theodor Dirck (engraver)

Title L’architecture militaire moderne...
Imprint Amsterdam, L. Elzevier, 1648
Localisation Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, 11746
Subject Military architecture
Transcribed version of the text

French

     In 1648 Lowijs Elzevier took charge of publishing this work (published in Latin in 1647) in French, thanks to the translation made by the Parisian Élie Poirier, a Huguenot writer living in Holland, known for his poems and the translation of the Éloge de la folie by Erasmus.  The death of Frederick-Henry of Nassau on March 14, 1647, led Matthias Dögen to be placed under the protection of his son and successor William II of Orange (1626-1650), to whom he dedicated the 1648 French edition, honoring him as the heir both of Maurice of Nassau, the father of hercotectonics or the art pertaining to the construction of fortifying strongholds and of Frederick, the father of aerotectonics, the art of attacking strongholds.

Michèle Virol (Centre Roland Mousnier-Paris Sorbonne) – 2010

Critical bibliography

D. Bierens de Haan, Bibliographie néerlandaise historique-scientifique des ouvrages importants dont les auteurs sont nés aux 16e, 17e, et 18e siècles, sur les sciences mathématiques et physiques, avec leurs applications, Nieuwkoop, de Graaf,1960, p. 76.

W. Frijhoff (ed.), Geschiedenis van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Sun, 2004.

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, herausgegeben von der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 5 (1877), "Dögen, Matthias", pp. 294-295.

M. D. Pollak, D. Military architecture cartography and the representation of the early modern European city. A checklist of treatises on fortification in the Newberry Library, Chicago, The Newberry Library, 1991, pp. 28-29.

U. Schütte (ed.), Architekt und Ingenieur. Baumeister in Krieg und Frieden, exhibition catalogue of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolffenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 1984.

Dictionnaire des Lettres françaises, Le XVIIe siècle, Paris, Fayard, 1996, "Élie Poirier", p. 997.