BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

     The success of the preceding Genevan editions of the Theatre des instrumens mathematiques et mechaniques de Jacques Besson (1578 et 1579) prompted Claude Juge, who had financed and published them in association with Jean de Laon, a master printer in Geneva, to ask Giulio Paschali for the present Italian translation. Paschali says he based it on the Latin edition of 1578, with new additions in subsequent editions of the work, in French (1594 and 1596) and in German (1595).
Giulio Paschali was a Protestant humanist, from a noble family of Messina, a refugee in Geneva since 1554. Very well-read and a poet, he translated Calvin's Institutions from French in 1557 and the Psalms of David from Hebrew in 1592.
It is worth noticing that the ten-year privilege granted to Besson in 1569 for the first edition of his book (1571-72) was used again for this publication in 1582 as was the Lyon location, at the shop of Barthélemy Vincent, which avoided the necessity of obtaining a printing authorization from the Geneva Petit Conseil.
The dedication is addressed to the jurist Claudio Della Cov, a member of the Senate of Savoie. Perhaps it would thus be possible to win the favors of that institution which played a moderating role, faced with the the ambitions of the young duc de Savoie, Charles-Emmanuel I, to reconquer Geneva.

Hélène Vérin (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris) – 2009

Critical bibliography

J. Besson, Instrumentorum et machinarum quas Jacobus Bessonus Delphinas mathematicus et a machinis practer alia excogitavit multisque vigiliis et laboribusexcaluit ad zerum multarum intellectu difficillimarum explicationem et totius Reipublicae utilitatem (facsimile of the 1569=c1571 edition), Paris, Jardin de Flore, 1978.

A. G. Keller, "The Missing Years of Jacques Besson, Inventor of Machines, Teacher of Mathematics, Distiller of Oils, and Huguenot Pastor", Technology and Culture, 14, 1, january 1973, pp. 28-39.

A. G. Keller, "A manuscript Version of Jacques Besson’s Book of Machines, with his unpublished Principles of Mechanics", B. S. Hall & D. C. West (ed.), On Pre-Modern Technology and Science, Malibu, Undena Publications, 1976, pp. 75-103.

L. Dolza & H. Vérin, "Figurer la mécanique: l’énigme des théâtres de machines de la Renaissance", Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 51-2, 2004-2, pp. 7-37.

L. Dolza & H. Vérin, Theatrum instrumentorum et machinarum : Lione, 1578 di Jacques Besson, introduction, facsimile of the 1578 edition, Rome, Edizioni dell’Elefante, 2001.

E. Droz, Chemins de l’Hérésie, textes et documents, 4, Geneva, Slatkine, 1976, pp. 271-374.

D. Hillard, "Jacques Besson et son Théâtre des instruments mathématiques", Revue française d'histoire du livre, 22, 1979, pp. 5-38.

D. Hillard, "Jacques Besson et son Théâtre des instruments mathématiques : recherches complémentaires", Revue française d'histoire du livre, 30, 1981, pp. 47-69.