L’Aeroplano.

L’Aeroplano: Evoluzione dell’aeronautica, introduzione all’astronautica, with a Latin motto on the title page (“Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando?”). The book carries four prefaces by Ludovico: Rome, 30 August 1949; Rome, 28 March 1951; Rome, 15 April 1952, issued in the fifth centenary year of Leonardo’s birth, when the section on jet propulsion was extended to take in some notions of astronautics; and Bari, 12 August 1954.

The fourth preface announces a new Part III, Il motore: evoluzione dall’aeronautica all’astronautica, meant to show, a hundred years after the first internal-combustion engine, the importance of the engine in the conquest of space. It runs from the piston engine through the turbojet, ramjet and turboprop to the rocket and “atomic” propulsor, and ends with a section “Verso l’astronautica” on missiles as the prelude to the conquest of space, artificial satellites and spaceships, and man in astral space (pp. 236–260). The other parts cover the history of aviation from Leonardo to the Wrights, a popular compendium of aerodynamics, and the various kinds of aircraft, with an appendix on aviation records.