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Kazimierz Siemienowicz (Belarusian: Казімер Семяновіч, Kazimir Siemianovič, Lithuanian: Kazimieras Simonavičius) (born c.1600 - c.1651) was a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman (szlachcic) from Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, General of artillery, gunsmith, military engineer, artillery specialist and pioneer of rocketry. His coat of arms was Ostoja. No portrait or detailed biography of him have survived.
Born in Witebsk (than Grand Duchy of Lithuania, part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, now modern Belarus), likely in a relatively poor szlachta family with military service traditions, Siemenowicz was educated in the Wilno University. As he wrote himself, he was fascinated by artillery since childhood, and he studied many sciences to increase his knowledge (mathematics, mechanics, hydraulics, architecture, optics, tactics). In 1634 he took part in the Smolensk War, in the siege of Biała. It is possible in 1644 he took part in the battle of Achmatów. He spent some time in the Netherlands, where he was sent by the King Wladyslaw IV to serve in the army of Duke Frederick Henry of Orange during the war with Spain. In 1646 he returned to Poland, when Wladyslaw created the Polish artillery corps and gathered specialists from Europe. From 1648 he served as Second in Command of Polish Royal Artillery, as an expert in the field of artillery and rocketry. However, in 1649 after the conflict with Krzysztof Arciszewski over a bureaucratic matter, he decied to leave the Commonwealth and work on his book in Amsterdam.
Fundamental work
He is the famous for his work Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima. Only the first part was finished before his death, although it is rumored he did write a manuscript before his death. The five sections of the Latin first edition deal with caliber, pyrotechnics, rockets, fire-balls and the building of firework set-pieces. Due to its specialized nature, this treatise became the standard "recipe book" for firework displays and the ulitmate, and often plagiarized, authority on military and recreational pyrotechnics for well over a century. In the first part of his work he also wrote that the second one would contain the universal pyrotechnic invention, containing all of our current knowledge. According to his short description, this invention was supposed to greatly ease all measurements and calculations. It is also rumored that he was killed by members of the metallurgy/gunsmith guilds, who were opposed to him publishing a book about their secrets, and that they hid or destroyed the manuscript of the second part.
"Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima" ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part". also known as "The Complete Art of Artillery"), first printed in Amsterdam in 1650, was translated to French in 1651, German in 1676, English and Dutch in 1729 and Polish in 1963.
For over two centuries this work was used in Europe as a basic artillery manual. The book provided the standard designs for creating rockets, fireballs, and other pyrotechnic devices. It discussed for the first time the idea of applying a reactive technique to artillery. It contains a large chapter on caliber, construction, production and properties of rockets (for both military and civil purposes), including multistage rockets, batteries of rockets, and rockets with delta wing stabilizers (instead of the common guiding rods).
Siemienowicz considered the use of poison gases unhonorable. In his work, he wrote: and most of all, they shall not construct any poisoned globes, nor other sorts of pyrobolic inventions, in which he shall introduce no poison whatsoever, besides which, they shall never employ them for the ruin and destruction of men, because the first inventors of our art thought such actions as unjust among themselves as unworthy of a man of heart and a real soldier.
His inventions were used in many battles. For example, in the battle of Chocim on November 11, 1673, where Commonwealth military units defeated the Ottoman army.
Quotes
- "Let better rockets serve Venus than blood-thirsty Mars".
See also
- Contemporary rocket inventors:
References
External links
- Short bio in English and a large one in Polish
- Pictures of Siemennowicz desings
- Short bio and 20th century picture on Uranos.org
- Short bio and few pics
- History of rocketry
1600 births 1651 deaths | Lithuanian scientists | Polish engineers | Lithuanian engineers | Belarusian scientists | Military engineers | Polish generals | Belarusian nobility | Polish nobility
Казімер Семяновіч | Kazimieras Simonavičius | Kazimierz Siemienowicz
"Kazimierz Siemienowicz"