In the great days of Italian fortification literature – the century from Valle's first Venetian edition in 1524 to the appearance of Tensini in 1624 – Venice accounted for roughly as many titles as the rest of Europe together. Books on fortification were a natural for the enterprising printer-publishers of this city-state, free from the constraints of small-minded princes and their paranoid insistence on "state secrets".
This annotated catalogue describes 350 books, published until the time when Venice ceased to be an independent state. It provides massive documentation taking into account the many "ghosts" created by misprints or over-zealous bibliographers and gives full collations, extensive annotations and locations of copies of all entries.
An index of printers and a "bibliographie raisonnée" of the sources used, appear at the end. The thirty-five illustrations are chosen for their relevance to the subject and range from early bastion traces to emblematic portraits.