[Telescoping siege machine]. Book illustration from Library of Congress
Summary
Print shows a telescoping tower raised from beneath by a screw mechanism manipulated by two men, used during siege warfare to gain an advantage of height by those perpetrating the siege.
Illus. in: Fl. Vegetii Renati De re militari libri qvatuor. Lutetiae : Apud C. Wechelum, 1532.
Published in: The tradition of technology : Landmarks of Western technology ... / Leonard C. Bruno. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1995, p. 17.
Printmaking in woodcut and engraving came to Northern Italy within a few decades of their invention north of the Alps. Engraving probably came first to Florence in the 1440s, the goldsmith Maso Finiguerra (1426–64) used the technique. Italian engraving caught the very early Renaissance, 1460–1490. Print copying was a widely accepted practice, as well as copying of paintings viewed as images in their own right.