The Epic Fireworks Blog

Or is it the most amazing rocket rack you have ever seen?

This is hardcore stuff. Found in an old book dating from 1668, this was the way to make fireworks at the time. What you see here are digitized images taken straight from the book, which was entitled: Lettres a une princesse d’Allemagne sur divers sujets de physique et de philosophie. Roughly (very roughly) translated as: Letters to a German Princess on various topics in physics and philosophy.

This book was written by a man named Leonhard Euler who, presumably knew a German Princess and wrote her letters. In this book, besides talking about fireworks. He talks about such diverse things as,

• How to make dainty sport with a cat
• A speedy way to make a horse fat, plump and lusty
• To put ones finger in, or to wash it in lead
• and the classic: how (for a wager) to cleave a thin groate in sunder like two groates

Yes, all the important things a 17th century princess would want to know (PS this is all totally genuine, we are not making it up, we wish we were, but we’re not.)

The most amazing for us of course are the pages upon pages of brilliant and incredibly complicated instructions for making and using fireworks.

Heres some of the text and images from this amazing book.

Aerial shells have certainly come a long way.

Lancework (also called setpieces) were insanely dramatic it seems, with all manner of creatures being portrayed. It looks as if as much work went into the machine (the wooden device used to conceal the actual firework) as went into the fireworks themselves.

Please please please, do not try this at home, seriously. However delectable to the spectators it may seem. Pyrotechnic compositions should only be attempted by trained and qualified professionals (or 17th  century german princesses)

So that should all be clear enough, if you can have your finished results in by Monday.

There are far too many pages of these to put them all here, but here is a link to the google books source that we guarantee will keep you entertained for hours. We stress again that nothing you have read here should be attempted. Leave it to the professionals.