Pompeo Targone was an Italian military engineer in the service of Ambrose Spinola. He was famous for his role in the Siege of Ostend (1604), the Siege of La Rochelle (1627-1628) and the Huguenot wars.[1] Targone proposed to block the channel leading to the harbour of La Rochelle in order to stop all supplies to the city, but his structure was broken by the winter weather, before the idea was taken up by the Royal architect Clément Metézeau and the Paris masson Jean Thiriau.[2] Targone has also been credited with the invention of the field mill in Vittorio Zonca's treatise on mechanical arts.[3]