Oder Anleitung zu denen Brunnenkünsten
The title of my book is “Architectura Hydraulica oder Anleitung zu denen Brunnenkünsten”. It is composed in German and written in 1765 by Caspar Walter. The book is, according to the title, is about building fountains. Because building fountains is not exactly general education, I assume that the book is meant for craftsman and architects. People who used this knowledge in their everyday work life.
The “Architectura Hydraulica” does not have list of contents. The book is structured in different parts. A part with charts and drawings and a part with the descriptions of the corresponding drawing.
The book is heavily illustrated with seemingly more pages filled with images than text. The drawings are beautifully done with a great amount of details. These often take up more than a single page and even stretch across a fold out page.
It is not a very thick book but a large one. I think the book has large page sizes so that the drawings can be detailed and sizable. But maybe there was not that much known about building fountains at that that time, that is why there are not that many pages.
Written was the book, as already mentioned, by Caspar Walter (1701–1769). He was a carpenter, just like his father. Caspar Walter became the official “Brunnenmeister” of Augsburg and published more than one book about technical aspects of water supply and the building industry in general.