 |
ACCOLTI, Pietro.
Lo Inganno de gl'Occhi
Florence; Pietro Cecconcelli, 1625.
£15000.00
|
|
FIRST EDITION Folio. pp. [12] 152 [2]. Roman letter, woodcut foliated and historiated initials and head and tailpieces, numerous quarter, half and three-quarter page scientific diagrams and illustrations to text. T-p with engraved arms of Cardinal Carlo de Medici, 17th C autograph of William Godolphin and another later, elaborate printer's device to last leaf. Old dampstain to extreme upper inner corner of a few leaves, foxed throughout. A good, well-margined copy in sumptuous mid-17th C Spanish crimson morocco gilt, large gilt arms of Felipe Ramirez de Guzman and his second wife Anna Carafa on upper cover, Felipe's personal emblem on lower, surmounted with his motto 'revoluta foecundant', spine gilt in compartments, upper joint repaired towards head, gilt corner ornaments and roll tooled border. Preserved in elaborate modern leather box with green morocco and wooden inlay. Very rare first and only early edition of Accolti's 'Deception of the Eyes,' on optics and practical perspective, of particular interest to painters. The work is divided into three parts, the first on surfaces, the second of objects - i.a. pillars, crosses and a lute, and the third on light and shadow. The work represents an important contribution to the theory of perspective and vanishing points, also examining anamorphosis and the camera obscura. While perspectival anamorphosis, which contrasts the distortion and resolution of an image by a slight physical movement of the beholder, had been employed since the Renaissance, perhaps most famously in Hans Holbein's 'The Ambassadors', Accolti here demonstrates the development of the baroque understanding of perspective of the traditional, or 'optic' image by recommending the use of a plane mirror to conjoin two points of view of an image, with the aim of making them interchangeable and simultaneous, an "effect of perspective which is as strange as it is delightful and ingenious". This laid the foundation for the evolution to the use of mirrors of different shapes and the study of catoptric anamorphosis. The work also contains the first printing of part of Leonardo's "Trattato della Pittura," which appears at the end of the volume, and touches upon techniques for the depiction of the human body and the use of colour.
Pietro Accolti (1578-1642), descendant of a famous Aretine family, was a painter, architect, librarian and mathematician. This is his only printed work.
Felipe Ramirez de Guzman, duke of Medina de las Torres (c.1600-1668) was viceroy of Naples from 1637-1644. He had a substantial library, much of it bound uniformly with this volume. William Godolphin was almost certainly Sir William (c1634-1646) Charles II's envoy and later ambassador in Madrid. Rumours of his conversion to Catholicism occasioned his recall, but Godolphin preferred to relinquish his career but remain in Spain, a Catholic.
BM STC It. I p. 4. Brunet VI, 495. Gamba n.1784. Riccardi I, 4 "alquanto raro ed assai pregiatore". Cicognara, 802: "Opera celebrata". Parenti, 12. Graesse I 11. Fowler 1. Vagnetti EIIIb13. Wiebenson III, B.15. Kemp, The Science of Art, p. 134-137.
L822
|
|
|