Today, new models of hardware are obsolute in a matter of years. It wasn’t until five years after his death that the first edition of Vittorio Zonca’s book on new machines was printed and published by Pietro Bertelli. Fourteen years later Bertelli’s son Francesco published a second edition using the same 42 copperplate engravings.
Three plates are signed: FV (i.e. monogram Francesco Valesio, born ca. 1560); Ben W sc (i.e. Benjamin Wright); and AH (or AHI or AI; monogram). The source for Zonca’s designs is believed to be a manuscript by the Sienese painter Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501), which includes illustrations of various fifteenth-century machines.
A good article about such books: Alexander Keller, “Novo Teatro di Machine et Edificii,” Technology and Culture (1988), p. 285-87. Firestone Library (F) 9030.898.
Other volumes in Princeton libraries of the “Theater of Machines” genre:
Jacques Besson, Theatrum instrumentorum et machinarum Iacobi Bessoni Delphinatis, mathematici ingeniosissimi (Lugduni: Apud. Barth. Vincent. …, 1582). 60 engravings by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (fl. 1549-1584) and others. Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 9008.175f
Gaspard Grollier de Servière (1677-1745), Recueil d’ouvrages curieux de mathematique et de mecanique, ou, Description du cabinet de Monsieur Grollier de Serviere (Lyon: Chez David Forey …, 1719). Engravings Étienne Joseph Daudet (1672-1730). Graphic Arts Collection (GA), 2007-3659N
Jacob Leupold (1674-1727), Theatrum machinarum… (Leipzig: Druckts Christoph Zunkel, 1724-1788). MICROFILM 03959
Agostino Ramelli (1531-ca. 1600), The Various and Ingenious Machines of Agostino Ramelli, translated from the Italian and French … by Martha Teach Gnudi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). Rare Books (Ex) Oversize Oversize TJ144 .R313q
Johann Vogel (17th/18th century), Die moderne Baukunst (Hamburg: B. Schiller, 1708). Marquand Library (SAX): Oversize TH144 .W63 1708q
