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tion in question – which can essentially be divided into three types – was that of never being
a design, nor an original and unique vehicle of geographical or military stamp, but always
purely decorative and illustrative, evoking the fact and corollary to it, in some way repeti-
tive, but in no case integrating an eventual written text.
Prince Eugenio’s Library. The Science and Art of War
Vilma Fasoli
Bought in 1738 from Emperor Charles VI, the library of Prince Eugenio (1663–1736) is
conserved in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. Over the years it has been
further enriched, not only by numerous books published after the prince’s death, but also
by valuable works preceding it, leading to a certain amount of difficulty in the reconstruc-
tion of its original composition. This essay aims to focus on the ‘man of arms’ beginning
with an analysis of the treaties and manuscripts of art and military architecture in order to
explore to what extent they are capable of documenting the prince’s affiliation to the circle
of “radical Enlightenment” brought to light by historiography. In the section of military
writings in Eugenio’s collection, three thematic trends can be discerned which also reflect
a chronological procession. Printed works from the sixteenth and the beginning of the sev-
enteenth century belong to the first phase of military treatise writing, documenting the suc-
cess of “modern-style fortifications”, the spread of the use of heavy artillery and the imper-
ative need to reorganise armies. The most up-to-date studies by Montecuccoli and Vauban
can be found in both volumes and manuscript copies showing the changes caused by the
campaigns of the Thirty Years’ War and subsequent modifications in both strategic and tac-
tical choices determined by the expansion of the war areas. Printed texts and many manu-
scripts after the siege of Vienna in 1683 reveal the very moment of a change under way,
since they radically influence the tasks and specialisations of the skills of military hierar-
chies.
Eugenio is both a witness and a protagonist of the phase that precedes this process of ratio-
nalising, centralising and statalising the military structures in which science will be given
the value of being the only resource capable of disciplining the violence of war. In this
phase, the long unresolved conflict between military hierarchies and technical roles such as
that of the engineer explodes; this conflict imposed specialist skills and the reformulating
of programmes and methods that were adequate for their formation.
The Construction of a Myth: The Siege in Historiography
Silvia Cavicchioli
The myth of the 1706 siege goes back many years indeed and permeates the history of Pied-
mont right up to our days. The military feats and city events have been recovered in a tri-
umphalist key, imbued with epic tones and coloured in the legendary telling in order to
strengthen – according to the period and circumstances – the Savoy element and the mili-
tary spirit, the presumed characteristics of ‘Piedmontese-ness’ and of ‘old Piedmont’, or the
affection of the Turinese for their city. The siege is always an ideologically efficient argu-
ment on a historiographic level serving a particular moment’s needs for self-representation,
whether for exalting the Savoy monarchy, pointing out the virtues of the Piedmontese and
emphasising their warlike spirit, or more simply for back-dating as much as possible the
incipit
of the Savoy’s more wide-reaching territorial policy, precursor of the spirit of ‘Ital-
ian-ness’ that characterised the dynastic choices of Carlo Alberto donwards, thus broaden-
ing national history. Reinforcing the myth of the siege and the battle of Turin occurred in
all social classes which, together with the variety of protagonists involved, soldiers and cler-
ics, nobles and common folk, dukes and peddlers recovered at the charity hospice, Ger-
mans and Piedmontese, helped to further its sort not only in the historiographic sphere but
also in the artistic one, from figurative and monumental circles, to literary and theatrical
ones.