the art in Italy and Spain a
that epoch. The citadel of Antwerp, built by two Italian engineers,
Pacciotti and Cerbelloni, in 1568, has become celebrated for the siege
it sustained in 1832.

The age of Louis XIV. effected a great revolution in the art of
fortification, and carried it to such a degree of perfection, that it
has since received but slight improvement. The years 1633 and 1634 are
interesting dates in the history of this art, as having given birth
respectively to Vauban and Coehorn. The former was chief engineer of
France under Louis XIV., and the latter held a corresponding position
under the Dutch republic. Coehorn's ideas upon fortification are
conceived with an especial view to the marshy soil of his own country,
and, although well suited to the object in view, are consequently of
less general application than those of his more distinguished
cotemporary and rival. The best specimens of his mode of construction
that exist at the present day, are the fortresses of Manheim,
Bergen-op-Zoom, Nimiguen, and Breda.

Coehorn was followed in Holland by Landsberg, an able and practical
engineer, who to much reading added extensive experience, having himself
served at sixteen sieges. His system was in many respects peculiar, both
in trace and relief; it dispensed with the glacis, and all revertments
of masonry. His plans could be applied only to marshy soils. The first
edition of his work was published in 1685.

But the career of Vauban forms the most marked and prominent era in the
history of fortification; it constitutes the connecting link between the
rude sketches of the earlier engineers, and the well-established form
which the art has since assumed. In his earlier works we find many of
the errors of his predecessors; but a gradual change seems to have been
wrought in his mind by reflection and experience, and these faults were
soon remedied and a new and distinct system developed. Vauban has left
no treatise upon his favorite art, and his ideas upon fortification have
been deduced from his constructions, and from detached memoirs left
among his papers. The nature of his labors, and the extent of his
activity and industry, may be imagined from the fact that he fought one
hundred and forty battles, conducted fifty-eight sieges, and built or
repaired three hundred fortifications. His memoirs, found among his
manuscript papers, on various military and political subjects, are
numerous, and highly praised even at