Robert Dudley, Trattato della vera architettura d’ogni sorta di vascello. vol. 2, Firenze, 1620
Robert Dudley (1574-1649), count of Warwick and Leicester and Duke of Northumbria, landed in Tuscany at the beginning of the seventeenth century after troubled inheritance issues. Seafarer, naval engineer and cartographer, he entered the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinando I de' Medici and then served under Cosimo II, planning numerous models of merchant and war ships for the grand-ducal fleet.
Of his first treatise on naval architecture, handwritten, partially in English in extralarge folio, the second volume presents beautiful drawings of ships and port fortifications, illustrated with bilingual technical terminology, which also represent fascinating works of art.
Location: Firenze - Biblioteca Umanistica, Section XII