Penn in Hand: Selected Manuscripts

Helm, Franz, approximately 1500-1567.

[Buch von den probierten Künsten] [manuscript].

[Bavaria, between 1585 and 1599?]

132 leaves : paper, col. ill. ; 305 x 190 (217 x 130) mm. bound to 307 x 210 mm.

Manual concerning the manufacture and use of gunpowder, ammunition, mines, grenades, flares, smokescreens, and traps, as well as the loading and firing of cannons. Concludes with a copy of the privileges of the guild of cannon-masters (Buchsenmaister) as granted by Frederick III in 1444 (f. 126r-133v).

Ms. codex.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Foliation: Paper, ii + 132; 2-76, [i], 77-130, 132-133; contemporary foliation in ink, upper right recto.

Layout: Written in 27-28 long lines; vertical bounding lines ruled in drypoint.

Script: Written in German cursive script.

Decoration: 30 illustrations in colored ink or colored washes over ink drawings, most being of types of weapons and explosives, with 2 illustrations of cannon-masters framed in red ink (f. 2r, 105r) and a landscape showing the use of animals to carry explosives into a city, also framed in red ink (f. 60r); headings in red and black.

Watermark: Cross in circle belonging to Piccard Three Mounts, Class X, nos. 2879-3059 (mainly Munich and Augsburg, also Donauwörth and the Tyrol, 1555-1635).

Binding: Contemporary leather, stamped and gold-tooled (but varnished and blackened), over late-18th or early-19th-century-leather over wooden boards.

Origin: Probably written in Bavaria, in the late 16th century.

Oversize LJS 442

Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts University of Pennsylvania Oversize LJS 442