VITRUVIUS

De Architectura

      1524. VITRUVIUS. De Architectura traducto di Latino in Vulgare. (Venetia: Ioane Antonio & Piero Fratelli da Sabio, 1524). Tall, slim quarto, early vellum spine and paper-covered boards. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $18,500. Second edition in Italian of "the first of the great books on architecture and certainly the most influential of them all" (Avery 2), with 136 woodcut figures and diagrams and 101 woodcut initials. Vitruvius was "simply a very well informed, experienced Roman architect-engineer of the first century B.C. (his book is dedicated to the Emperor Augustus) who put everything he knew into ten so-called books of text. He deals with the education of the architect, with the fundamental principles of architecture (order, arrangement, eurythmy, symmetry, propriety and economy are his terms), with siting, material, constructions, building types (such as dwellings, temples, prisons and theaters), with weather conditions and even with astrology. To the Renaissance and indeed to all later followers of the classic tradition, his was the authentic voice of antiquity! all the more so since, through a ghastly fluke of history, all Greek writing on architecture has been lost. Thus our knowledge not only of Roman but also of Greek architectural theory (on the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders, on proportions, modules and ratios etc.) derives from this scholarly but sober Roman who in the introduction to his seventh 'book' lists all his Greek sources!the first bibliography in architectural literature" (Avery 2). "Important as our prime source of many lost Greek writings on the subject and as a guide to archaeological research in Italy and Greece. By exemplifying the principles of classical architecture it became the fundamental architectural handbook for centuries! Alberti, Bramante, Ghiberti, Michelangelo, Vignola, Palladio and many others were directly inspired by Vitruvius" (PMM 26). First published in Rome between 1483 and 1490. The text of this edition is "from the Italian text of the Como edition [1521], edited by Francesco Lutio Durantino. The illustrations are close copies, and follow page by page the arrangement of the 1511 [Venice] edition. The title page border is also from that edition" (Fowler 398). Title page printed in red and black. Opens with 37-page index of terms used in the book. Text in Italian. See Avery 2, PMM 26. Bookplate with deaccession stamp of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; occasional unobtrusive bookstamps throughout. Bookseller ticket. Typed page of bibliographic details tipped to rear pastedown endpaper. Expert paper repairs to title and final leaves. Text very fresh and crisp, with only scattered light foxing throughout. Sound vellum spine aged as expected, with the words "1524 Venice" handwritten at top of spine. Light soiling to paper-covered boards. A remarkable copy of an architectural classic.