Comparisons
In the book, „Compendio della Frotificatione“, Giulio Emilio Alberghetti presents, in an almost catalogue-styled book, different styles and categories of fortifications. He, in fact, wrote this book to introduce the newest and most advanced possibilities in the fortification building process to the senate of Venice at this time, which was at war with the ottoman empire, and was in need of such fortifications.
After a brief introduction and an instruction on how to read the book, we are presented with a list of different possible geographical locations for fortifications, in wich he shows the reader the advantages and disadvantages of each one in a surprisingly modern layout style.
Continuing Alberghetti starts describing different fortification styles of different countries such as England, France and the Netherlands. Instead of informing the reader of his personal preferences he objectively lists the different facts about them, letting the reader make his mind up by himself, according to his needs. He goes into great depth of the geometrical form of the wall and the functionality that it comes with, such as the ability to place canons in different positions. He achieves to inform the reader using illustrations ans schematics of the different types. This allows for an ease in comparing these types of wall structures. The use of charts also allows for a very comprehensible way of understanding the different dimensions of the fortifications and renders it easy for comparison.
In the second part of the book Alberghetti goes further into detail regarding the strategical placement of troops, canons and necessary buildings inside the Fortification, as well as placement of different infrastructures inside of an offensive camp. He also demonstrates different, already existing examples of moats and wall structures using sectional drawings to demonstrate their effectiveness. On the final page he shows the reader some examples of geometrical outer wall layouts accompanied by instructions to the different measurement units he uses throughout the book.
It appears that the „Compendio della Fortificatione“ could be used as an illustration of the different possibilities when it come to building a fort. It informs the reader much like a modern guide on how to be most successful in a specific situation and lets him combine the different mentioned layers to build the most appropriate fort to its surroundings, by comparing the different aspects of a fort. The only subjective aspect of this book may be the different examples that he chose to represent de aspects of the forts wich he probably thought to be the best in their category.
Keywords
manual, objectivity, differentiation