[Book review] Lines of defence - fortification drawings of the Baroque Age at the National Library of Malta

Abstract

Despite the often urgent nature of war, works of fortification were generally conceived first as designs on the drawing board before being imposed on the landscape and shaped into impregnable strongholds. The hand-drawn plans and architectural drawings illustrated in a new book entitled Lines of Defence show the great importance that drawing, and hence draughtsmanship, assumed in the preparations for war within the milieu of the renowned Hospitaller Order of the Knights of St. John the Baptist, more commonly known as the Order of Malta.