Konrad Kyeser (26 August 1366 – after 1405) was a German military engineer and the author of Bellifortis ( c. 1405 ), a book on military technology that was popular throughout the 15th century. Originally conceived for King Wenceslaus , Kyeser dedicated the finished work to Rupert of Germany .
18-442: Bellifortis ( lit. ' Strong in War ' , 'War Fortifications') is the first fully illustrated manual of military technology, written by Konrad Kyeser and dating from the start of the 15th century. It summarises material from classical writers on military technology, like Vegetius ' De Re Militari and Frontinus ' anecdotal Strategemata , emphasising poliorcetics , or
36-461: A bitter response to his exile. He emphasizes in the dedication the relationship of technical knowledge to technical skills. He writes of the German soldiers, "Just as the sky shines with stars, Germany shines forth with liberal disciplines, is embellished with mechanics, and adorned with diverse arts." At the end of the treatise, Kyeser gives a markedly unusual appearance of himself. He portrays himself as
54-617: A dying worried person. He even provides his own epitaph, "May my soul be joined to your very high one." The Bellifortis is survived in 45 manuscripts and was either copied completely or partly, and sometimes amplified, in several later manuscripts. The most famous are the Thott manuscript of Hans Talhoffer of the 15th century, but there are editions of Vegetius ' De Re Militari from 1535 in Latin and 1536 in French, that contain pictures clearly copied from
72-411: A giant spearhead-like artifact in his hands with the mysterious letters: MEUFATON . In another illustration Alexander is shown as the supposed inventor of a very large war carriage. Kyeser writes that Alexander was not only a great inventor of war devices but was able to use them himself. Alexander is portrayed with magical abilities. Konrad dedicated his finished treatise to the weak Ruprecht III in
90-449: A large number of war devices and machines. The treatise was designed more for a prince or king than for an engineer. Kyeser believed his war manual would make other armies run in all directions. His treatise often made reference to antiquity, especially the war tactics of Alexander the Great . He writes that Alexander had many war technical abilities. In one illustration he shows Alexander with
108-590: Is the name of an important botanical book first published in 1613 and written by Basilius Besler . Allied prisoners of war were held at Oflag VII-B in Eichstätt during World War II . Activities carried on by the prisoners there included attempted escapes and the production of plays and musical works. These included Hamlet and the Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare , the premiere of Post-Mortem by Noël Coward - featuring Desmond Llewelyn, later best known as Q in
126-663: The Late Middle Ages . There are at least twelve surviving 15th-century manuscripts which copy, excerpt, or amplify the work. One of these is the Thott Fechtbuch of Hans Talhoffer (1459). The book is divided into ten chapters, though there are also issues with the full content divided into 7 chapters. The topics of the chapters include cars, siege engines , hydraulic engines, elevators, firearms, defensive arms, "wondrous secrets", fireworks for warfare, fireworks for pleasure, and auxiliary tools. The diving suit presented in
144-568: The 2018 video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance , and is voiced by Brian Blessed . Eichst%C3%A4tt Eichstätt ( German pronunciation: [ˈaɪçʃtɛt] ) is a town in the federal state of Bavaria , Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt . It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Eichstätt . Eichstätt lies on both sides of
162-662: The Bellifortis (with more up-to-date clothing for the soldiers), to augment the original text-only treatise by Vegetius. In the Renaissance in Italy Bellifortis was well-known and widespread. The result of new research shows that also Leonardo da Vinci knew the work of Kyeser and that several of Leonardo's technical illustrations are based on the Bellifortis. [REDACTED] Media related to Bellifortis at Wikimedia Commons Konrad Kyeser A native of Eichstätt , Kyeser
180-751: The EON Bond movies - and of the Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard by Benjamin Britten . The town is dominated by the Willibaldsburg . Besides the cathedral , Eichstätt also has 12 churches and 10 monasteries. Eichstätt is home to the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU), the lone Catholic university in Germany. The KU was founded in 1980, and was granted full rights of
198-742: The Prague scriptorium . The work, which was not printed until 1967, survived in a single original presentation manuscript on parchment at University of Göttingen , bearing the date 1405, and in numerous copies, excerpts and amplifications, both of the text and of the illustrations, made in German lands. Bellifortis was written in Latin and contained many elaborate illustrations of war weaponry. The manual discusses machines and technology that were old and new. It described weapons such as trebuchets , battering rams , movable portable bridges, cannons, rockets, chariots, ships, mills, scaling ladders, incendiary devices, crossbows, and instruments of torture. The portrait of
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#1732851332269216-443: The art of siege warfare , but treating magic as a supplement to the military arts; it is "saturated with astrology ", remarked Lynn White, Jr. in a review of the first facsimile edition. Konrad Kyeser wrote his treatise between 1402 and 1405 when he was exiled from Prague to his hometown of Eichstätt . Many of the illustrations for the book were made by German illuminators who were sent to Eichstätt after their own ousting from
234-457: The author is called by its modern editor the first realistic portrait of an author since Antiquity . Kyeser’s viewpoint was that warfare in the broadest sense was most effective if looked at from all angles, which included astrology and sorcery. His manual presented the technology of the art of war through the association of education and Latin letters. The book was of a large expensive format. It had elaborate illustrations and lavish drawings of
252-499: The book has precedents reaching back to the 12th century and to Roger Bacon . The book also has the earliest known depiction of a chastity belt . Kyeser counts the artes magicae among the mechanical arts , and his work contains various applications of magic in warfare. The original codex is kept in the Göttingen University library (Cod. Ms. philos. 63). Other editions include the following: Kyeser appears as an NPC in
270-679: The river Altmühl in the district of Eichstätt of the Oberbayern region of Bavaria, in the heart of Altmühl Valley Nature Park . Eichstätt is located in a valley of the Franconian Jura and is famous for the quarries of Solnhofen Plattenkalk (Jurassic limestone). On the Blumenberg the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx was found by Jakob Niemeyer. St. Willibald founded the Diocese of Eichstätt on
288-709: The site of an old Roman station ( Aureatum or Rubilocus ) in 741. The city was given walls and chartered in 908. It was ruled by a prince-bishop , and in the Holy Roman Empire was the seat of the Bishopric of Eichstätt until secularization in 1802. In 1806, it became a part of the Kingdom of Bavaria . Eichstätt was included as part of the Principality of Eichstätt , which King Maximilian I granted to his son-in-law Eugène de Beauharnais in 1817 and an episcopal see
306-560: Was reestablished in 1821. It reverted to the Bavarian crown in 1855. In 870, the remains of St. Walpurga were transferred from their original Heidenheim interment to Eichstätt, where in 1035 the newer burial site was enshrined as the Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga, which continues to this day. In 1943, the painter Karl Friedrich Lippmann moved to Eichstätt and stayed until 1955. Hortus Eystettensis ("Garden at Eichstätt")
324-631: Was trained as a physician and lived at the court in Padua before he joined the crusade against the Turks which ended in disaster at the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. Kyeser lived in exile in a mountain village in Bohemia during the reign of Sigismund in 1402 to 1403. During his time in exile, Kyeser began to write his book on the military arts . The book is the most prominent illustrated treatise on military engineering of
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