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The Geometry of War, 1500-1750

20 February – 30th November 1996

What was needed were walls that could withstand artillery bombardment and be defended against direct infantry assault. The solution to the problem was devised in Italy and rapidly spread throughout Europe in the 16th century. Fortifications were built where possible in the form of regular polygons, with low, thick walls and an angled bastion at each corner of the polygon. Guns mounted on the projecting bastions provided sidelong or flanking fire on attackers. As with the contemporary classical idiom in civil architecture, the new military architecture developed a geometrical formalism with systems of rules to regulate the work of its practitioners.

The application of mathematical science in the context of the battlefield.

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