The book I was assigned is “La militare architettura, overo fortificatione moderna, cauata dall’esperienza, e da varie maniere più pratticabili” by Pietro Ruggiero. I started by searching the name of the author using the entire Xenotheka brain. This however did not yield any results.
I continued by with keywords relevant to the topics discussed in the book, such as: “military architecture”, “fortress”, “baroque fortress”, “modern military architecture” and “baroque fortification” among others. The results were usually not entirely on topic, but at times somewhat adjacent to it.
A book that kept coming up was Kruft, A History of architectural theory. In the excerpts Alice presented the book talks about the paradigm shift that happened with gunpowder and new artillery technology in the renaissance which necessitated a new type of military architecture. “A history of architectural theory” also talks about how new found knowledge of ballistics, as published in the works of mathematician Nicolo Tartaglia, became the basis of defensive architecture in the 16th century (and beyond). This technological revolution also caused the differentiation between engineers and architects, which up to that point were virtually interchangeable, as it required further specialisation into the respective fields. The new types of fortifications developed are essentially the topic of Ruggiero La military architecture, which would be a more contemporary source to the topic at hand.
Van Eck, Eighteenth Century Architecture also came up. The excerpt talks about the Accademia and the education and inspirations of architects at the time. It is unclear how exactly the architects were taught, but charts used by professors in the late 1600s survive. Alongside Vitruvius and the five orders these detailed basic geometry and arithmetics as well as historical and contemporary examples of fortifications. The contents described here are very similar to what is found in Ruggieroos La militare architettura. With it also being written around this time it is not implausible that this book, or at the very least similar ones, were used for the teaching of architects at this Accademia at the time.