Fosco Foschi, an aspiring military contractor from Pesaro,
pushes the limits of cinquecento high tech.

Presented by: The Staff of the Medici Archive Project
(with thanks to Fabrizio Nevola, Fellow Emeritus, who discovered and researched the document.)

DOCUMENT CITATION:
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 1865 f. 115
(Entry 8477 in the "Documentary Sources" database.)

TRANSLATION:

Discussion of a Cart

First of all, every army captain ought to have one since they can be used to carry 4 to 6 pieces of baggage such as tents, beds, cooking stoves, foodstuffs and other necessities; one cart drawn by two horses can take care of all this.

Secondly, should you arrive at a river and have no way to cross it, they can be used as barges and can instantly carry infantry and cavalry.

Thirdly, should you need to throw a bridge across a river, as happens every day, these carts can make one as wide or long as necessary.

Fourthly, should you arrive at a walled town that you desire to capture then and there but have no way to scale the walls, these carts can serve as ladders, as high as you may need.

Fifthly, when an army has reached its limit in marching, making camps and fighting, these carts can instantly create trenches to protect it from any enemy attack. All these reasons, I would certainly say, make the cart worth having, but its principal function is the following:

Sixthly, you can load up this cart with fifteen or twenty arquebuses full to the mouth with balls and powder and there will also be four cutting scythes on the sides. Then, according to my own invention, you will be able to start up the cart and send it into battle without people or horses to pull or guide it. Then it will fire off its weaponry against cavalry or infantry, speeding along like a bolt of lightning, which God alone can stop. But now you might ask me, how is it possible to bring all of these carts across mountains or difficult terrain? My answer is that two horses can pull it with ease on flat ground and with like ease it can be disassembled. And thus dismantled, it can be divided up among beasts of burden. I believe that this arrangement would be convenient and economical for your Lordships, since you would then be traveling with less baggage and a cart can carry incomparably more. For short periods when necessary, if nothing else is available, your cavalry horses can carry the objects that are in the cart, though here I defer to the sounder judgement of others.

And in order to give you an inkling of the truth and credibility of this, I attest that every pound of fire [?gunpowder] transports better than twelve pounds of weight for me more than two hundred and twenty paces forward. So, by multiplying you can well believe how much weight it can carry and how far it can travel, as we can see and prove by the grace of God.

I find that I also have four books of military principles, based on what I have looked for and seen during eighteen years in this occupation of mine. Never have I found anyone who knows how an army travels, lodges and fights except through practical experience. And, with the grace of God, I will leave this to whomever may happen to come after me and will understand it thoroughly according to sound rules.

Foscho Foschi da Pesaro

TRANSCRIPTION:

Discorso d'un carro;

In prima ch'ogni capitano nell'eserciti ne debba havere uno, che così come si menano 4 o 6 bagagli per portare padaglioni, letti, cucine, vittovaglie et altre cose necessarie, che questo carro da due cavalli tirato li potrà suplire il tutto.

Seconda, ch'arrivando ad un fiume et non ci essendo come passare, questi carri conpleno per barche da passare in un subito ogni cavalleria et fanterie.

Terza che bisognando buttare un ponte sopra d'un fiume, com'occore ogni dì, questi carri lo fariano largo et longho quanto fosse necessario.

Quarta, ch'arrivando ad una terra, et volendola d'improvviso pigliare, ne ci essendo come salire alla muraglia, questi carri farriano scale, tant'alte quanto bisognassero.

Quinta, che caminando, alloggiando o combattendo un esercito che più non può fare, questi carri in un subito fariano trinciere, per ogn'impeto che potesse venire da inimici. Delli quali effetti senza dubio handolo da portarsi drieto, ho voluto che serva, ma il suo fine è stato per questo;

Sesta, che carricandosi detto carro de 15 o xx archibusi pieni, sino alla bocha di palle et di polvere con 4 falce radenti dalle bande, et poi darli tocho sechondo la mia inventione, contro una cavalleria o fanteria, solo Dio potrà tenere che non vadi com'uno fulgore, tuttavia scaricandosi da se istesso, senza huomini, et senza cavalli, che lo tiri o guidi. Ma perche mi si potrà dire, come farà menare tanti carri per montagnie et luochi disestrosi, le rispondo che cosi come li due cavalli lo tirrano a piacere per il piano, così ancho bisognando tutto si discompone, et si puote facilmente caricare per soma di sorte, che mi pare non solo che sii fastidio, ma venghi ancho a diminuire la spesa per li Sig.ri da portarsi tante bagaglie drieto, essendo ch'un carro suplisse et porta molto più senza comparatione, servendosi in caso di necessità per un puocho, quando altro non ci fosse delli cavalli delle compagnie per portare le robbe che fossero nelli carri, reportandomi però sempre a più sano giudiucio.

Et per darli qualche scintila di credenza del vero, l’affermo, ch’ogni libra di fuocho mi porta meglio di dodici libre di peso, più di ducento vinti passa inanti, a tale che così multiplicando, si può credere che porti tanto più peso, et faccia tanto più camino, come per la gracia de Dio all’effetti si potrà vedere, et certificare.

Mi ritrovo ancho havere fatto quatro libri di ordinanze, che di questo ho cercho, et visto da 18 anni in qua in quest’esercitio, mai ho trovato che sapia, che caminando, alloggiando o combattendo un’esercito, salvo che per praticha, Et io con la gracia de Dio lasserò di sorte a chi verrà doppo me che l’intenderà benissimo con regola vera.

Foscho Foschi da Pesaro

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

Though Fosco Foschi’s all-purpose amphibious fighting machine may sound like an excursion into Renaissance science fiction, such ingenious contraptions (whether real or imagined) constitute an important chapter in the annals of the art and science of war. Foschi and his contemporaries could look back on a distinguished classical literature on warfare and fortifications, including discussions of military architecture, strategy and logistics by such authoritative Roman writers as Vitruvius and Pliny the Younger.

More recently, celebrated artists and engineers had built prestigious careers at Renaissance Courts on their expertise in the areas of ballistics and fortifications, which were more sought-after and better-paid trades than mere painting, sculpture or civil architecture. During the siege of Florence in 1529-30, Michelangelo fortified the hill of San Miniato overlooking the city. Around 1482, Leonardo da Vinci wrote a remarkable letter to Lodovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, detailing his ingenuity in designing and constructing machines that could bring decisive military advantage to his employer. Only at the end of the letter does he bother to note in passing that in time of peace, "I can do whatever can be done in painting as well as anyone else."

Who in fact was "Fosco Foschi from Pesaro", the author of the present "discussion"? Clearly he was an experienced all-around military man whose interests included the transport, feeding and quartering of troops as much as their deployment in battle. Although this Fosco Foschi is yet to emerge in other documentary sources, his geographical identifier is highly suggestive. The surname of "Foschi" was widely diffused in the region of the Marche (which includes the city of Pesaro), on the east coast of Italy across the Appenines from Tuscany. In the quattrocento, this region had been at the forefront of military engineering, under the guidance of the warrior-princes of the Montefeltro and Malatesta families. A Cristofano Foschi of Pesaro (active 1434-1463) worked on the construction of Sigismondo Malatesta’s dynastic church in Rimini, the "Tempio Malatestiano", as well as lending his expertise to this patron’s military campaigns. Domenico Foschi (1430-1503), also known as Fosco da Rimini, was a humanist letterato; in the 1460s he wrote a eulogistic introduction to Roberto Valturio’s celebrated military treatise, "De Re Militari", dedicated to Sigismondo Malatesta. [See the Illustration and Note, above.] Domenico Foschi might well have had Medici or at least Florentine connections, since his manuscript text survives in a unique copy in the Medicean library at San Lorenzo [Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana, ms. 46.3 fo. 198].

Whatever Fosco Foschi’s antecedents, he would have been sure to find many colleagues from the Marche at the court of Cosimo I de’ Medici. Indeed, virtually all of Duke Cosimo’s most distinguished engineers seem to have come from that part of the world, including Giovanni Camerini from Camerino, Baldassare Lanci from Urbino and Giovanni Battista Bellucci from San Marino. Whether or not Foschi could have counted on any of these to back up his sales pitch, the simple fact that he was un ingegnere marchigiano would probably have enhanced his credibility.

What in fact was Fosco Foschi da Pesaro actually proposing to Cosimo I de’ Medici and could it possibly—by any remote chance—have functioned as advertised? After a thundering build-up, Foschi becomes deviously oblique at the crucial juncture in Point Six. He unleashes his self-propelled doom machine "which God alone can stop". Then he plants a question in the audience, in the best huckster fashion, "Now you might ask me...(how on earth does the contraption work?)" But he ducks at the last minute and goes running after a peripheral concern. ("How is it possible to bring all of these carts across mountains or difficult terrain?")

He approaches the issue again in the next paragraph ("How on earth does the contraption work?!"), giving us an implied physics equation as teaser. The general principle, however, seems clear: The machine was to be propelled by the recoil or "kick" of the arrayed firearms. We know that Cosimo I’s secretaries duly filed Foschi’s prospectus though we don’t yet know what the reply, if any, might have been. In any case, the Marchigiano’s timing was seriously flawed, since the Duke had successfully concluded his massive campaign against Siena two years earlier, his defense budget was at sub-deficit level and he had no other military ventures looming on the horizon. (See Once More Into the Breach, January 2001 "Document Highlights".)

RESEARCH QUESTION:

What exactly did Fosco Foschi have in mind? Could it possibly have worked? Is there an ingegnere in the house?

FURTHER READING:

J. R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620, London 1985

Mechanical Marvels: Invention in the Age of Leonardo, ed. Paolo Galluzzi [Exhibition catalogue: World Financial Center, New York./ Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze, 1997]

ILLUSTRATION NOTE:

In his classic treatise on warfare, De Re Militari, Roberto Valturio (1405-1475) illustrates a range of fabulously inventive machines for both land and naval warfare. It was first printed in Verona in 1472 and then went through many later editions (the present illustration comes from the Parisian edition of 1532.) Fosco Foschi certainly knew Valturio’s work well and the allegedly Arabian assault weapon that we see here makes his proposal to Cosimo I de’ Medici seem conservative by comparison.

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