A Display of the Earliest Type. From a contemporary print (c. 1650).
The first European people to make headway in the art of pyrotechny proper appear to have been the Italians. Vanochio, an Italian, in a work on artillery, dated 1572, attributes to the Florentines and Viennese the honour of being the first who made fireworks on erections of wood, decorated with statues and pictures raised to a great height, some in Florence being forty ells, or seventy-two feet high. He adds that these were illuminated so that they might be seen from a distance, and that the statues threw out fire from the mouths and eyes.
He refers to the practice, which survived up to the end of the eighteenth century, of constructing elaborate temples or palaces richly decorated, with transparencies illuminated from inside, statuary, gilding, floral and other decorations. On these erections the fireworks proper were displayed, and which were then called artificial fireworks. Nothing very large in the way of firework set-pieces seems to have been attempted, but effect was gained by repetition of a small device over the facade of the building.
Displays were given annually in Florence at the Feast of St. John and the Assumption. This custom extended to Rome, where the festivals were given on the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, and at the rejoicings on the election of a Pope.
The towers and fortifications of the castle of St. Angelo furnished suitable spots for these, being visible from the greater part of the city of Rome, and what are described as braziers, firepots, and other fires would be placed there, so as to give a great display without the expense of a building.
Evelyn, the famous diarist, gives an account of one such display which he witnessed in 1664.
In other towns that wished to imitate the festival of Rome, it was arranged to place illuminations on the highest towers and steeples of the towns, but as it was found that there was considerable danger of fire from these, it was afterwards preferred to make suitable erections in the great public squares, which were convenient for the exhibition itself and also for the sightseers.
The Italians appear to have held the supremacy until the end of the seventeenth century.
In the book of Artillery by Diego Ufano, written in 1610, we read that only very simple fireworks were made in his time in Spain and Flanders, consisting of wooden framework supporting pots of fire wrapped round with cloth dipped in pitch, but that more than fifty years before magnificent spectacles could be seen in Italy.