What mathematics for Portuguese military engineers? From the class of fortification to the Military Academy of Lisbon

Abstract

There were no explicit regulations on the mathematical content of Portuguese military engineering education before the middle of the 18th century. But it is possible to reconstruct this content by consulting the few textbooks that were published and comparing them with surviving manuscript lecture notes, the most interesting of which date from the 1720s and 1730s. These sources provide evidence of a considerably more comprehensive mathematical curriculum, from the 1720s onwards, than earlier in the seventeenth century. This change was probably due to the efforts of Manuel Azevedo Fortes, the Chief Engineer, aimed at transforming the classes on fortification into military academies, and at elevating the status of military engineers more generally.