Artiglieria Veneta

Item author: Domenico Gasperoni
Item date: 1782
Grant Value: £1,842 from FNL's B. H. Breslauer Fund
Item cost: £1,842
Item date acquired: 2013
Item institution: Wallace Collection
Town/City: London

Artiglieria Veneta racolta, e fatta incider in rame dal Sopraintendente ora inspector general Domenico Gasperoni l'anno Domini 1782

The Republic of Venice was for centuries famous throughout Europe for the quality of the artillery which it manufactured at its state-run foundries in the Arsenal in Venice.  With an economy in great part dependent on maritime trade, and with an extensive range of Italian and Mediterranean trading interests and imperial possessions to protect, a reliable supply of high-quality artillery was a fundamental strategic necessity for Venice.   The excellence of Venetian artillery was an important contributory factor in the success of the Republic in maintaining its main trade routes in the Levant throughout a period of some three hundred years.

The Venetian state maintained an historic collection of the finest artillery produced in the Arsenal, but sadly all these pieces were taken by the French in 1798 and all but one were melted down.  This makes the work Artiglieria Veneta by the Republic’s last director of artillery, Domenico Gasperoni, all the more important.  Gasperoni recorded the collection through the publication in 1779 of 19 beautiful engraved plates, which today form the basis of much of our knowledge of the history of Venetian ordnance.  His compendium is extremely rare, the copy acquired by the Wallace Collection through the generosity of the Friends of the National Libraries being apparently the only copy in any UK institution. Like other surviving copies, the Wallace Collection copy has additions to the basic set of 19 plates, but unlike any others it is dated 1782, and it has a number of additional engravings, accompanied by manuscript notes in Gasperoni’s hand.  Some of the extra plates show views of the Arsenal ‘museum’, whilst others depict artillery in use, including Gasperoni’s own bizarre (and probably highly dangerous!) invention of a portable cannon held and fired from under a soldier’s arm.  The precise status of the additions will be the subject of future research.  

The Wallace Collection owns one of the world’s great collections of arms and armour and is also a leading research centre for the subjec.

This grant was awarded from FNL's B. H. Breslauer Fund, thanks to the generosity of the President and Officers of the B. H. Breslauer Foundation.