BESSON, Jacques

Theatre des Instrumens Mathematiques et Mechaniques

Geneva: Jacque Chouet, 1594.

Large folio. 60 full-page plates, commentary on recto of each.

Contemporary limp vellum.

This is a later edition of Jacque Besson's famous Theatrum Instrumentorum (ca 1571), which was the first of the famous "Theatres of Machines" (cf Ramelli, Zonca, Bockler) that were the rage in renaissance Europe. In it Besson depicts, in full page plates, a wide variety of mechanical "wonders" of his time, ranging from mechanical drawing instruments to sawmills, lathes, and other machines. It contains a very early depiction of a fire engine, of Besson's own design.

Besson's fire engine.

A sawmill.