Tartaglia, Quesiti et inventioni diverse, Venice, 1546, olive morocco gilt by the Fugger Binder with arms of England, the dedication copy bound for presentation to King Henry VIII

TARTAGLIA, NICCOLÒ. Quesiti, et inventioni diverse de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano. Venice: Venturino Ruffinelli for the author, July 1546

THE DEDICATION COPY OF TARTAGLIA'S PRACTICAL TREATISE ON BALLISTICS, IN A CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN BINDING BY THE FUGGER BINDER, OFFERED AND DEDICATED TO HENRY VIII as part of the author's campaign to inform Christian princes of his discoveries and thereby counter the Ottoman threat (Tartaglia had dedicated his Nova scientia for the same reason to Frencesco della Rovere, Duke of Urbino). The mathematician Richard Wentworth, a pupil of Tartaglia, had made Tartaglia aware of the English monarch's fascination with all matters pertaining to war (A3r: mi disse anchora, qualmente vostra Celsitudine si dilettava grandamente di tutte le cose alla guerra pertinente), and Tartaglia thus knew that his gift would be well-received. The Quesiti was composed in "rough and base" Italian (A3r: prononciate con rozzo et basso stile), rather than Latin, so that the King and a group of Italians in his service would be sure to understand it (Bolland).

This copy on special large paper was bound for presentation with the royal arms painted on the upper cover and the printed dedication heightened with gold. It was carried to England by Filippo Pini of Lucca, one of several Italian mercenaries hired by the English court to recruit in Italy companies of infantry and horse in preparation for conflict with France. The circumstances are related in a letter (20 August 1546) of the English ambassador to Venice, Edmund Harvel, to Henry VIII, describing Tartaglia as a man of singular honesty and erudition in geometry, whose hope is that Henry will "of his noble and bountiful nature" accept the gift, and commending Pini's character (Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (London, 1862-1932), vol. XXI/1, no. 1482; Charlotte Bolland, Italian material culture at the Tudor Court, PhD thesis, University of London, 2011, pp. 46, 143). If the book was indeed received (the King died 28 January 1547), it escaped the notice of John Bale, who made a select list of books in the royal library c. 1548, and of those performing postmortem inventories of Henry VIII's palaces (James P. Carley, The Libraries of Henry VIII, London, 2000).

Sotheby's is grateful to Professor Mirjam M. Foot for her assistance in researching this binding.