Recto: "Libro Primo, Chapo " (Vitruvius, Book 1, Chapter 4); Verso: The Fortification of City Walls (Vitruvius, Book 1, Chapter 5). 1530–45 Attributed to a member of the Sangallo family Italian The creator of this drawing was an experienced draftsman of military technology and architecture, as is evident by his use of perspective and in the level of surface detail with which he elaborated the forms presented here. This proficiency is clear when compared to illustrations of military fortifications in early printed editions of Vitruvius (see the edition of 1524 by Durantino).The fortifi

Recto: "Libro Primo, Chapo " (Vitruvius, Book 1, Chapter 4); Verso: The Fortification of City Walls (Vitruvius, Book 1, Chapter 5). 1530–45 Attributed to a member of the Sangallo family Italian The creator of this drawing was an experienced draftsman of military technology and architecture, as is evident by his use of perspective and in the level of surface detail with which he elaborated the forms presented here. This proficiency is clear when compared to illustrations of military fortifications in early printed editions of Vitruvius (see the edition of 1524 by Durantino).The fortification of cities and ports was a specialty of the Sangallo family and of Antonio da Sangallo "The Younger" in particular, as he worked as a military engineer in the papal court in Rome. A prolific architect and draftsman, Antonio "The Younger" owned, among others, a pocket-sized, printed Latin edition of Vitruvius, which he annotated with drawings and text. It is today part of the Metropolitan Museum's vast collection of early Vitruvius editions. His younger brother and much-overshadowed amanuensis for many of his military drawings, Giovanni Battista da Sangallo "Il Gobbo," left an insightful book of commentary on Vitruvius, which, according to a 1568 biography by Giorgio Vasari, "never saw the light of publication." A recent discovery, this sheet and seven others (acc. nos. ) comprised a manuscript draft for an Italian edition of the sole surviving architectural treatise of Roman antiquity, Ten Books on Architecture by Marcus Pollius Vitruvius (late first century ). Had the project been completed, it would have ranked among the brilliantly imaginative works of Renaissance interpretive architectural theory. The drawings also exhibit a beautifully expressive handling of the pen. Comparisons of style as well as of the shorthand notation in the sketching of human figures suggest a close kinship with drawings by Bastiano "Aristotile" da Sangallo (Florence, 1481

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