Note 358 — Chapter VIII · MUSIC AND PLASTIC

Although gunpowder is much older than the Baroque, its application in real earnest to long-ranging fire-arms was only accomplished during the 16th Century. It cannot be said that there was any technical reason why 100 years should have elapsed between the first use of powder in European warfare and the first effective soldier’s fire-arm. No careful student of this period of military history can fail to be struck with this fact—the significance of which, not being technical, must be cultural. Much the same could be said of printing, which, so far as concerns technical factors, might just as well have been invented in the 10th as in the 15th Century.—Tr.