DURER, Albrecht; DUERER,Albrecht; Durer

Institutiones geometricae [translation of Die Unterweisung der Messung

      1532. DURER, Albrecht. Institutiones Geometricae (Latin translation of Die Unterweysung der Messung by Joachim Camerarius). Collation: a4 A-P6 Q4 = 98 ff., including 9 plates on 5 leaves. Illustrated with 148 woodcuts in the text (9 full-page), closely copied from the 1525 German edition; two folding extention plates pasted on pp. 179 & 181, woodcut geometrical diagrams and figures throughout. Small folio, 330 x 220 mm, bound in eighteenth-century half calf over marbled boards, expertly rebacked. Paris: Christian Wechsel, 1532. |~||~||~||~||~| First Latin Edition of Die Underweysung der Messung ("A Course in the Art of Measurement"), the first of Durer's writings on art theory; it presented to northern Europe the completely new attitude to artistic creation which had crystallized in Italy during the Renaissance. "Its immediate object was to explain the application of practical geometry to drawing and painting and to teach the principals of perspective. These methods were to be applied to architecture, painting, lettering (Durer designed both Roman and Gothic letters) and ornamental forms in general, and his book is therefore addressed not only to artists but also to sculptors, architects, goldsmiths, stonemasons and other craftsmen" (PMM). In order to explain complex mathematical symbols to his German readers, Durer had to invent many new mathematical terms, and thus was influential in the development of German scientific prose. This Latin translation by the humanist Camerarius brought the treatise to a much wider audience than the original German edition of 1525. In the Preface Durer states: "I have decided to teach geometry's rudiments and principles to all youngsters eager for art... it may benefit not only painters but also goldsmiths, sculptors, stonemasons, carpenters and all those who have to rely on measurement." Therefore the work remains a book for practical use, and not a treatise on pure mathematics. Panofsky stresses the work's three-fold importance: for Durer's technical innovation in his construction of a perspective apparatus; for being the first literary document "in which a strictly representational problem received a strictly scientific treatment at the hands of a Northerner"; and for emphasizing that "perspective is not a technical discipline destined to remain subsidiary to painting or architecture, but an important branch of mathematics, capable of being developed into what is now known as general projective geometry" (Life and Art of Albrecht Durer, pp. 247-260). Liber III contains Durer's famous treatise on creating Roman capital letters and Gothic or "textura" letters, all constructed by means of small geometrical forms. Lower corner margins of first 2 ff. extended without loss. A crisp copy. PMM 54. Mortimer, French 183. Bohatta 6. Meder 286.