The fifth considerably enlarged edition of the famous course on descriptive geometry, held in 1795 at the École Normale at Paris by Gaspar Monge (1746-1818). Originally published in 1798, the work was formative and even "created" descriptive geometry and opened up a new and promising era for technical engineering. Descriptive geometry lays at the roots of all technical drawing and graphical methods that help to make mechanical engineering possible. An extensive new preface by the present editor, Barnabé Brisson (1777-1828), inspector of the "Ponts et Chaussées", explains about the role of the École Normale, founded October 30, 1794, which was to renew public education and allow France to develop its own industries. Also included are a list of the first professors, and a biographical note on Gaspard Monge, first professor of descriptive geometry. Added to the present edition are three extra lectures, discovered among Monge's papers after his death. Monge's work justly became one of the most famous in the literature of perspective.
The work shows some foxing throughout. Otherwise in good condition. Dict. Scient. Biogr. 9, pp. 469-478; History of Technology IV, p. 482; Kemp, The Science of Art, p. 221 ff., incl. ills.; Vagnetti EIVb72; see also: R. Taton, L'Oeuvre Scientifique de Gaspard Monge, 1951.