{"title":"Arts \u0026 Architecture","description":"\u003cp\u003eBooks on fine art, design, architecture, artists, movements, and the built environment across history.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"lomazzo-paolo","title":"LOMAZZO, Paolo","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition, second issue with a new title page, of this seminal work of art theory by the Italian painter and writer Lomazzo.  Lomazzo, the Milanese painter (1538-1600), wished to give in his theoretical writings the final and conclusive argument for the nobility of painting. By demonstrating that the painter s primary and most important activity was intellectual, and that that his manual activity was in all cases simply an execution of ideas mentally conceived, he extended to painters the dignity hitherto enjoyed by poets and rhetoricians. By supplying rules for the seven parts of painting that he had logically deduced from careful definition, he  reduced painting to an art,  and elevated it to an academic subject. These demonstrations were to result in a single and complete treatise that covered theory, technique, and subject matter. ... Lomazzo s publications were not motivated simply by his vanity as a painter or his ambition as a writer. During the century and a half previous to his career, enormous changes had taken place in the art of painting, which made his arguments for the higher station of painting both necessary and valid. Painters had developed techniques and rules that could be systematized and taught like those of the liberal arts, and they had increased the range and seriousness of the thematic matter of the art in a way to rival literature. The technical accomplishments of the Renaissance painters are still admired and studied in an age that abjures their employment, and the full extent of the intellectual content of Renaissance painting will remain a matter for inquiry, discovery and synthesis through many more years of iconographical studies.  Gerald Ackerman. The Art Bulletin Vol. 49, No. 4 (Dec., 1967).  It is the summa of late Renaissance theory of art, a book Schlosser called the  bible of Mannerism . ..Lomazzo s art theory reached many readers... Still in the sixteenth century a translation of the Trattato appeared in Oxford,  englished by Richard Haydock, student of Physick  (1598). A treatise by the English miniature painter Richard Hilliard is so closely related to the Trattato that it has been considered a paraphrase of Lomazzo s text. Here was finally the longed -for, articulate, complete system of painting - and Lomazzo constructed a system perfectly fitting the intellectual and emotional atmosphere prevailing among the public he addressed. His claim to providing a system rests, to begin with , on what he believes to be a complete enumeration of the constituents, or  parts  of paintings. The art of producing images consists of seven parts, and to each of them a book of the Trattato is devoted.  Moshe Barasch.  Theories of Art: From Plato to Winckelmann . The book is also full of first-hand information about Milanese artists, quoting extensively from lost sources. The seventh and final book includes a veritable dictionary of the iconography of the period. A lovely copy of this important first edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LOMAZZO, Paolo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816082252111,"sku":"L1426","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2024-08-06-at-12.06.23.webp?v=1781795319"},{"product_id":"ruskin-john","title":"RUSKIN, John","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this early treatise in defence of the so-called Pre-Raphaelites - in Ruskin's terms surprisingly also including William Turner, his everlasting idol in painting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RUSKIN, John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816101585231,"sku":"X59","price":1350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/X59-Ruskin-1-e1520949151893.jpg?v=1781795311"},{"product_id":"bardi-girolamo","title":"BARDI, Girolamo","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Girolamo Bardi's important guide to the paintings in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice; the work is very rare, only one copy (Cambridge UL) is recorded in Adams. Little is known of Bardi's life, save that he came from a prominent Florentine family, which produced a number of authors and scholars. The present work is dedicated to Giovanni I Cornaro (1551-1629; Doge from 1625). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In 1577, a huge fire damaged the Sala dello Scrutinio and the Great Council Chamber in the Palazzo Ducale, causing serious structural damage and destroying numerous important paintings. Architectural reconstruction work was completed by 1579-1580, and a committee was formed to commission new works of art and devise the iconographic programme which they should follow. Bardi was a member of this committee; the present work reveals not only his 'insider knowledge' of the practical implementation of the restoration project, but also his deep appreciation of art and the care with which the new decorative schema was devised. Many of the paintings from this mass commissioning were inevitably workmanlike, never wholly adequate replacements for the lost works by artists such as Gentile da Fabriano, Pisanello, Alvise Vivarini, Carpaccio, Bellini, Pordenone and Titian. But there were also inspired and innovative choices, such as the new works by Tintorretto, Bassano and Paolo Veronese. (The restoration programme lasted many years, and some famous works, such as Tintorretto's Paradise, were produced long after Bardi's preliminary report.) \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In the present work, Bardi describes the circumstances of the fire, and the reorganisation of the two rooms worst affected, the Sala dello Scrutinio and the Great Council Chamber. His detailed description of the new pictures, recording celebrated Venetian victories, essentially provides a potted version of the key events of Venetian history, as conceived by the rulers of the late sixteenth century. In addition to the historical paintings, Bardi also describes the portraits of the Doges, a permanent record of whose likeness was a consequence of office. The art historical interest of the account is increased by the fact that Bardi explains the physical layout of the rooms, with details of where each painting was hung in relation to its fellows, allowing us to reconstruct the precise appearance and disposition of the galleries at this period.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BARDI, Girolamo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816116920655,"sku":"L641","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.12.33PM.png?v=1782580779"},{"product_id":"de-lorme-philibert","title":"DE L'ORME, Philibert","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe third edition, using all the woodcuts of the first (1561), of this important and beautifully printed and illustrated treatise. De L Orme (c.1510-1570),was one of the great Renaissance architects of the 16th century, the first French architect to possess the universal outlook of the Italian masters without merely imitating them. Mindful that French architectural requirements differed from the Italian, and respectful of native materials, he founded his designs on sound engineering principles, fusing the orders with a delicacy of invention, restraint, and harmony characteristic of purest French classicism. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  the simple woodcuts are excellent examples of perfectly understood and clearly presented structural details and show De Lorme s system of built up timber roofs, requiring no ties or heavy timbers, which was successfully used as late as the end of the eighteenth century in the Halle-aux-Bles in Paris. Indeed, De Lorme is unique among the early writers on architecture for the emphasis he placed upon construction. ..A copy of the 1576 edition was in the library of Thomas Jefferson (Sowerby, No. 4183).  Fowler (on the first edition). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Of the leading early French architectural writers, De Lorme is the most interesting and original, but is less distinguished an artist than Jean Bullant and is less versatile as a draughtsman than Du Cerceau. De Lorme has been called the first modern architect because of his original contributions to construction and his skill as an organizer, but Blomfield says that  It was by his strong individuality rather than by his art that De Lorme won, and has maintained, his place among the great Frenchmen of the sixteenth century  (Blomfeld French Arch. I Vol. I p. 92)  Fowler. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  First published in 1561 the  Nouvelles inventions (the treatise on roofs) describes ingenious techniques which replace the use of large rectilinear pieces of square section, with small flat and curved elements assembled like keystones. This new invention appears to comply with a rational approach in industrial terms, in that it keeps costs down, standardises construction and means that a relatively unqualified workforce can be employed. These innovative ideas, which were too revolutionary to achieve much success despite the persuasive force of the author, were not put into practice properly until after 1750, the date when the modern science of building properly emerged.  Vaughan Hart  Paper Palaces   The treatise  Le nouvelles inventions  .... is a milestone in the history of wood inventions as it contains different conceptions of how wood can be used. Anyone who wishes to study wooden roofing has to consider the theories of this French architect.  Maria Rita Campa.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DE L'ORME, Philibert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816117543247,"sku":"L1511","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_fd11f9cf-817b-46f8-b4ec-4ea1f92e5ab8.png?v=1781795304"},{"product_id":"barbaro-daniello","title":"BARBARO, Daniello","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition, first issue ,of Barbaro s important treatise on perspective; it can also be composed of titles and colophons dated 1568 and 1569 in any combination, another variant has an elaborate woodcut title with no date. The Venetian Daniel Barbaro (1514-1570) advocated the use of the camera obscura as an aid to drawing and perspective, and this work contains one of the earliest descriptions of the use of a biconvex lens to assist artists in the representation of scenes from nature, bringing the device one step closer to the modern-day camera. The improvement in the image obtained with the device, as well as by adjusting the distance upon which the image is to be projected, was described by Barbaro. This work was one of the most respected texts on perspective in the sixteenth century, comparable to Durer s Manual. Designed for an audience of artists, architects, stage designers, etc., Barbaro's work is more mathematical than artistic. Its influence derived from the separation of perspective, used in the design of stage sets, from the graphic representation of buildings. It is partly based on the methods and writings of Piero della Francesca, but written in a more readable and humanistic style. The work is illustrated in part with a range of polyhedra, and it includes the earliest drawing of the truncated icosidodecahedron and it ties Jamnitzer for the earliest rhombicosidodecahedron. The work opens with a preparatory text on the principles of geometrical optics, the division of surfaces, the properties of triangles and the distinction between point at the level of the eye and the distance point. The sixth part is the account and the reduction of the diagram of Ptolomy's planisphere. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The treatise on practical perspective by the Venetian humanist Daniele Barbaro was the first work of its type published in Italy. .. In his annotations on Vitruvius' treatise (1567), Barbaro had already devoted a long passage to the question. ... He learned perspective with the mathematician Giovanni Zamberti, the brother of Bartolomeo, the celebrated translator of Euclid. From contact with him, he became initiated into the questions of geometric optics which make up the starting point of his treatise. But he extends the universe of scientific reference considerably for problems of figurative standardization. The questions raised by Ptolemy's planisphere entered into debates on perspective in the second half of the 16th century, thanks to Federico Commandino's annotations (1558). ... Barbaro's treatise on perspective is the first text which attempted to bring together in a single book subject matter which until then had been dispersed in works from numerous, sometimes unrelated, disciplines, and of very different status. He expresses remarkable skill in reformulating speculations and giving them a function clearly and briefly. Thus Barbaro's treatise constitutes the first reduction in the art of perspective, a model which was to be traditional until the 19th century.  Pascal Dubourg-Glatigny. A crisp copy of this important and beautifully illustrated work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BARBARO, Daniello","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816136450383,"sku":"L2580","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4099-copy.jpg?v=1781795207"},{"product_id":"revese-bruto-ottavio","title":"REVESE BRUTO, Ottavio","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst and only edition of Ottavio Revese Bruto s (Brendola 1585-1648) architectural textbook, which shows how to make and use an  archisesto . The  archisesto  is a proportional compass invented by the author, who based his invention on Galileo Galilei s geometrical and military compass, the sector. The name  archisesto  comes from the words  archi[tettura]  and  sesto  (compass). This work is a  do-it-yourself  aid for architects; the tool became quite popular between C17th and C18th, especially in Britain, where it was known as the architectonic sector. A nobleman from the area of Vicenza, Revese Bruto was educated at the prestigious Accademia Olimpica, where he had the opportunity to study the legacy of some of the greatest Italian architects of the Renaissance, such as Andrea Palladio, Sebastiano Serlio, and Vincenzo Scamozzi. To mention but one, the triumphal arch of Campo Marzo (destroyed in 1938) was among his most important achievements, and his 1620 s fine engraving of the stage of the Teatro Olimpico became soon a widespread and well-known illustration of the most celebrated theatre of Vicenza. His interests spanned from theatrical art to the technique of perspective. He is given as the author of treatises on these subjects, even though Archisesto appears to be his only published work. As the title has it, the architectonic sector s aim is to facilitate the mathematics behind the design of the five orders of architecture: the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Composite, and the Corinthian. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The book is divided in five sections which focus on these styles, and it is strongly informed by earlier paramount works on Classical architecture and proportion (above all, Vignola 1562; Palladio 1570). Revese Bruto illustrates how to design arches, architraves, columns, pedestals, capitals and balustrades according to the canons of each one of the five orders. His addressee is Federico Cornaro, Bishop of Vicenza, who is praised in verse at the beginning. It is known that Cornaro commissioned the re-styling of the façade of the Vicenza bishop s palace to Revese Bruto in the same period in which Archisesto was published. The five sections are preceded by the advice to the reader. Instructions on how to make an architectonic sector follow, together with the folding plate that illustrates its components. In the advice, the author states that the design of ornaments has always been the most delightful part of his profession. However, he knows the decoration of buildings is no easy task, since the attainment of right proportions often requires complex calculations. His architectonic sector offers a shortcut in this respect, making the burden of mathematics lighter. Revese Bruto s only regret, he confesses, is not to have succeeded in showing how to divide the lines of the arch. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In addition to the practitioners of architecture, the author makes clear that anybody dealing with geometry, arithmetic, and music, will benefit from the use of this multifunctional object. Not only will his  scherzo matematico  (mathematical joke) help one to design archways and divide the lines of the arcade, but also it will allow the architect to plan  temples, theatres, amphitheatres, circles, towers, pyramids, colossai, mausoleums, and so on.  Most interestingly, Revese Bruto instructs the reader on how to build an architectonic sector. By cutting the components out of the large folding plate, and gluing them on either card board or plywood, one can start to assemble a model of the tool, which however is way longer and more complicated a process. Revese Bruto explains it in detail, advising on materials to use, such as German brass foil, without neglecting the entrepreneurial aspect of his invention. He leaves the reader suggesting the purchase of a good metal architectonic sector in Padua s Piazza della Signoria at the shop premises of the craftsman Aquilin Serena Giovine.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REVESE BRUTO, Ottavio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816137498959,"sku":"L2657d","price":10500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-AB.webp?v=1781795198"},{"product_id":"vitruvius-pollio-marcus","title":"VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus.","description":"\u003cp\u003eHandsome, clean, crisp copy of this important edition of the founding work of Renaissance architectural theory, issued with translations by Johannes de Laet polymath and director of the Dutch West India Company of other major, nearly contemporary, contributions. It is  a superb edition, decorated with many woodcuts ,  somewhat scarce  (Willems 1097) a very useful compendium for practitioners. The first work is a Latin translation of  Elements of Architecture  (1624), itself a free adaptation of Vitruvius s major opus, by the English scholar and diplomat Henry Wotton (1568-1639). Following Vitruvius, he identifies the  ultimate end of architecture as building well  and that good buildings should be  comfortable, solid and aesthetically delightful . The second is the only surviving major ancient work on the subject  De architectura  in ten books by Vitruvius (80\/70-15BC), a Roman architect and engineer. He begins from the basics (what is architecture, the building of foundations, the qualities of woods and stones), and proceeds with the handsomely illustrated examination of building structures (the decoration and proportions of the five orders of columns) and the construction of specific buildings (e.g., temples, theatres or baths, private or communal residences), down to their painting and the effects of humidity. Most famously, in book III, Vitruvius related the proportions of temples to those of the human figure a theory which inspired Leonardo s immensely influential drawing of the  Vitruvian Man  inscribed within a circle. There follow works on integrating architectural theories including Agricola s on weights and measurements, Goldmann s essay on the  voluta ionica , Alberti s works on painting and sculpture, and two commentaries, a technical dictionary, an index and a treatise on the pedestal of columns ( Scamilli impares ) all relating to Vitruvius s work. A handsomely printed, important compendium of major architectural theories, from antiquity to the mid-C17.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816164729167,"sku":"L3156","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3156-3.jpg?v=1781794877"},{"product_id":"antiquarum-statuarum-urbis-romae","title":"ANTIQUARUM STATUARUM URBIS ROMAE","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lovely copy of this suite of prints in a beautiful, most unusual and ingenious binding by the M.M. atelier in Paris, incorporating two large wallets to store drawings or prints. The binding was undoubtedly made with the idea in mind that a collector, perhaps on a grand tour of Italy, could use the wallets to store the engravings or drawings he found on his travels, to perhaps paste them into the blank leaves at a later date, or to make notes or drawings directly on these leaves. We have found other books with J M Tourret s label but nothing about his life, or his collection. The book is a most ingenious design, beautifully bound, a wonderful object, that gives an insight into collecting on the grand tour. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding can be attributed to the  MM  binder; the corner-piece tool on the covers corresponds exactly with that identified as tool  MM6  in cyclopedia.org. These bindings  range from 1770 to at least 1786. .. This able binder appears to be a master of the classic dentelles of the 60 s and may have apprenticed with a famous royal binder from that period. At the same time he uses tools in the same fashion as Jubert in the mid 80 s. It would not surprise me if these two binders were about the same age and apprenticed with Derome, Douceur or Dubuisson. Unlike the work of Jubert we do not see the inclusion of any Derome tools or fers √† l oiseau in the decoration of these bindings. From the very first examples we see bindings of a very important and high standing. A 1776 Royal Almanach with the arms of Louis XVI. Somehow I doubt whether one goes from apprenticeship to royal bindings all that quickly. .. Also note Douceur s influence in the tools, flowers and floral motifs dominant.  cyclopedia.org \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The fine set of Prints are by the publisher printmaker Giovanni Battista de  Cavalieri  Engraver, printer and print publisher, from Villa Lagarina near Trento. Active in Venice and from 1559 in Rome. In 1577 he had a bottega in Parione which he let out to a cartolaio, Girolamo Agnelli. His own house was in the vicolo di Palazzo Savelli, with a workshop next to it. He was the brother-in-law of Lorenzo Vaccari. .. By 1560 he seems to have been publishing his own plates. He entered into partnerships for publishing: in 1567 with Perino Zecchini de Guarlottis ..and in 1576 with Lorenzo Vaccari. In 1577 he was employing a printer: Francesco Cornuti. He acquired old plates that he recut. He published plates by his contemporaries, including Cort. He himself engraved after works of many artists, including Francesco Salviati, Daniele da Volterra, Raphael, Michelangelo, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Livio Agresti and Baccio Bandinelli. He also made copies of earlier prints. His subject matter included the devotional, topographical, antiquarian, didactic and  popular . He published a number of important series: the  Pontificum Romanorum Effigies  of 1580 and the  Romanorum Imperatorum Effigies  of 1583; the  Ecclesiae Militantis Triumphi  of 1583 and the  Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea  of 1584; the  Antiquarum Statuarum Urbis Romae , the first book of which was first published before 1561\/2 (Book 1 and 2 together, before 1584; Books 3 and 4 in 1594).  M. Bury,  The Print in Italy 1550-1625 , British Museum. Brunet states that there is a copy of this set at the Bibliotheque Imperiale that contains 82 engravings though also states that sets generally vary largely in the number of plates included. He concludes  Au reste, il est difficile de dire rien de bien exact sur le nombre et l ordre de ces planches qui ont  ét é publi ées √† plusieurs reprises sans num érotage et sans table  (Brunet).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ANTIQUARUM STATUARUM URBIS ROMAE","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816165482831,"sku":"L3195","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3195-2.jpg?v=1781794874"},{"product_id":"vredeman-de-vries-hans","title":"VREDEMAN de VRIES, Hans","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of the first edition of this important series of plates, here in fresh impression, produced by Hieronymus Cock, depicting major funerary monuments of royal, aristocratic and ecclesiastic personalities. Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-1604) was a Dutch architect, painter and engineer, renowned for his skilled knowledge of perspective and architectural ornament, as well as his building of fortifications for major European capitals. His biography was among those included in Vasari s  Lives of the Artists , and probably written by Vredeman himself. First published in 1563,  Pictores  was a ground-breaking architectural work anticipating the C17 Mannerist innovations of northern architects like Dietterlich. The 26 engravings of major funerary monuments abandon classical simplicity in favour of complex ornamentation and heavy stone drapery. Vredeman  gave western Europe the fantasy architecture of a haunted dream, delivered with a command of perspective that carried his plates through edition after edition from his  Pictores  until well into the C17  ( Architecture Without Kings , 75). Although some of the tombs portrayed are assigned to real people Charles V, Queen Isabella and Andrea Doria they do not represent the actual monuments, but fictional variations conceived by Vredeman. Influenced by Catholic ideals, the typology of his funerary monuments reflected the connection between  the rank of the deceased and the form of their tomb  (statues, pictorial decoration, canopies, location, etc.), based on social factors and categories the nobleman, the religious, the faithful wife, the emperor and the admiral, and unassigned sarcophagi ( Sumptuous Memories , 25, 22-23). A handsomely produced witness to the complex social iconography of funeralia, caught between the Reformation and the CounterReformation. \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy (probably a very early issue?) was printed without the Latin verse captions praising the deceased or musing on death.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VREDEMAN de VRIES, Hans","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816167219535,"sku":"L3099","price":11500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_20190828_154641-scaled.jpg?v=1781794866"},{"product_id":"fauno-lucio-with-ligorio-pirro","title":"FAUNO, Lucio. [with] LIGORIO, Pirro.","description":"\u003cp\u003eExcellent copies of these early, understudied guides to ancient Rome. This genre originated in the late C15, when printers like Stephan Plannck and Sigismund Mayr issued regular  indulgentiae  or short pamphlets on Roman churches and relics, interspersed with historical accounts, for pilgrims visiting the stations marked by the indulgence they had purchased (Schudt,  Guide di Roma , 19-26). The present guides added to this model the antiquarian influence of Flavio Biondo s C15  Roma instaurata  a reconstruction of ancient Roman topography before Christianity. Lucio Fauno (d. c.1552) was an Italian antiquary and translator. His  Delle antichit√† , of which the  Compendio  is an abridgement, begins with an account of the origins of Rome from Romulus; it proceeds with an examination of the city gates and the roads that cross them, the Campidoglio, Aventino and Esquilino hills, whilst lingering on the most important surrounding ancient monuments, and historical narratives connected to the area, from the Foro Traiano to the Pantheon, the Baths of Caracalla and Augustus s Mauseoleum. Fauno also mentioned an amulet with invocations to the angelic tetrarchy, found in 1544 in the tomb of Maria, wife to Onorius, Emperor of the West, discovered in the Vatican chapel of St Petronilla. Pirro Ligorio (1512\/13-83) was an Italian painter, antiquarian and architect. Written in an informal and engaging tone, his  Libro delle antichit√†  is organised in very short sections devoted to a gate, a hill or a monument. Each is devised to challenge, in anecdotical form with incipits like  Strange and utterly false is the idea that  ,  How wrong are people who believe that   received historical information which has proven incorrect, asking visitors to think critically. For instance, concerning the traditional belief that the Mausoleum of Augustus has 12 doors, Ligorio writes:  Why following authorities blindly, if we see with our own eyes that the Mausoleum has only one, not sundry, doors?  A remarkably fresh and clean collection of three important works for the development of the early modern fascination with Roman ruins.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FAUNO, Lucio. [with] LIGORIO, Pirro.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816167874895,"sku":"L3023a","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3023a-6.jpg?v=1781794863"},{"product_id":"langley-batty","title":"LANGLEY, Batty","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of this beautifully illustrated and influential work on Neo-Gothic architecture from the library of the Earl of Guilford, Lord North, at Wroxton Abbey, bound with a very rare catalogue of the architectural works of the publisher. Batty Langley (baptised 14 September 1696   3 March 1751) was an English garden designer, and prolific writer who produced a number of engraved designs for  Gothick  structures, summerhouses and garden seats first half of the 18th century. He published extensively, and attempted to  improve  Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions. He inclined strongly towards a home-grown English architectural form, publishing articles in the Grub Street Journal under the pseudonym  Hiram  from July 1734 to March 1735, praising Gothic architecture (or as he termed it  native Saxon ) and rejecting the  imported  Palladian architecture favoured by Lord Burlington and his circle. He published a wide range of architectural books, from a huge folio on Ancient Masonry in parts from 1733 to 1736 with over 450 plates, through The Builder s Complete Assistant of 1738 (also known as The Builder s Complete Chest-Book) and The Builder s Jewel of 1741, to the tiny The Workman s Golden Rule in 1750, in vicesimo-quarto. He is best known for this work  Ancient Architecture, Restored, and Improved  first published in 1742 and reissued in 1747 as Gothic Architecture, improved by Rules and Proportions. His book, with engravings by his brother Thomas Langley, attempted to improve Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions and to create a scheme of architectural orders for Gothic architecture. He provided inspiration for elements of buildings from Great Fulford and Hartland Abbey in Devon, to Speedwell Castle in Brewood in Staffordshire, and Tissington Hall in Derbyshire, and the Gothic temple at Bramham Park in Yorkshire, and gates at Castletown House in County Kildare.Langley s books were also enormously influential in Britain s American colonies. At Mount Vernon, for example, George Washington relied upon plate 51 of Langley s The City and Country Builder s and Workman s Treasury of Designs as the source for the famous Venetian (or Palladian) window in the dining room; upon plate 54 of the same book for the ocular window on Mount Vernon s western facade; and upon plate 75 of Langley s The Builder s Jewel for the rusticated wood siding. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy form the library at Wroxton Abbey.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LANGLEY, Batty","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820341633359,"sku":"L3389\/1","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L33891-3.jpg?v=1781794842"},{"product_id":"marliani-bartolomeo","title":"MARLIANI, Bartolomeo","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine copy of the first illustrated edition of this most important early guide to Rome  rare  (Brunet). Bartolomeo Marliani (1488-1566) was a humanist, archaeologist and antiquary. First published in 1534 as  Antiquae Romae topographia , this is his most famous work. This edition was dedicated to Francis I, and remained the standard reference for the topography of ancient Rome to the C18. Rabelais had planned to write a similar description of ancient Rome, a project eventually aborted; he contributed instead to Marliani s,  offering his knowledge, and checking classical quotations and inscriptions  (McGowan, 36). In peripatetic fashion, the work leads the reader around the remains of the ancient city, illustrating side by side its ruins and lost buildings. It discusses, in brief sections, temples, private and state buildings, arches, sepulchres, basilicae, baths, bridges, roads and aqueducts, but also statues and columns, often reproducing epigraphic inscriptions, and with the help of 23 woodcuts, here in strong, clean impression. The handsomely illustrated statues of the  Lupa Capitolina  and the Laoc√∂on are remarkable, this depiction being  one of the earliest known  (Fowler). Marliani s identification of the original location of the Foro Romano was harshly criticised by the architect Pirro Ligorio, whose (incorrect) theory eventually prevailed.  Topographia  epitomized a growing  confluence of interest among scholars and architects who were pursuing a common goal, the graphic preservation of Roman antiquity  a feat previously attempted, among others, by Serlio in  Terzo libro  and Raphael, in a short-lived project begun just before his death (Maier, 8). The large, important map of Rome is beautifully executed by the celebrated calligrapher Giovanni Battista Palatino (1515-75). Following the  ichnographic  technique defined by Vitruvius, current among architects but little known to the wider readership, it portrays jointly natural and human topography, rendering buildings as plans, specifying the thickness of walls and columns, and, through fine hatching, the relative height of the hills all to scale (Maier, 6). A fresh, clean copy of this important work for the early modern rediscovery of ancient Rome. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Nordkirchen Library was located in the castle of the Dukes of Arenberg, built in the early C18 and known as the  Versailles of Wesphalia . One of the richest of its time, the library comprised very rare, sometimes unrecorded mss, incunabula and early books. The collection was sold in Brussels in 1951, when it was first revealed to the wider public, becoming a major event for bibliophiles worldwide.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MARLIANI, Bartolomeo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820352020815,"sku":"L3584","price":10500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/6-5_22c38f95-9679-425e-8800-117f9059689f.jpg?v=1781794792"},{"product_id":"miniature-painting","title":"[MINIATURE PAINTING].","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An intriguing painting on vellum, fresh and in very good condition the souvenir of a northern amateur artist s visit to Venice and its notorious nightlife.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The scene is set at the famous Ridotto, a wing of Palazzo Dandolo which, from 1638 to 1774, was a gambling (and flirting) hall frequented by all ranks of Venetians, from prostitutes to aristocrats. (In the mid-C18 it would become one of Casanova s favourite hunting grounds.) The wooden ceiling, chandeliers, tall windows, alternating paintings and candelabra on the walls recall the Ridotto portrayed by Francesco Guardi c.1765. Given that the most famous illustrations of the Ridotto date from the C18, this is possibly the earliest obtainable.  In the last days of Carnival, after midnight, an orchestra in the main room played the most common dances; though everyone was allowed to dance, it was usually only those wearing masks who did  (Lundy, I, 201).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The masks in the painting include the classic Commedia dell Arte or folkloric figures (Harlequin, Pulcinella, Pantalone), as well as fashionable Oriental costumes. There are typically Venetian accessories, which waned in popularity c.1700, immortalised in the Venetian section of Vecellio s  Habiti  (1590). The weathercock\/flag fan had been widespread in Venice since the late C15. The  sop√®i , tall wooden shoes originally associated with Venetian prostitutes, also became popular among women of the patriciate in the C17. The numerous women with the  moretta  (black mask), veil and muff are very similar to those in an early C18 engraving of Venetian costumes by J. van Grevenboek. Three women in the background, their head covered and lower neck dangerously exposed, recall the habit of Venetian courtesans described by Vecellio,  who make themselves known when they uncover their neck . Brawls, as that occurring on the upper left, were a common occurrence at masquerades. The miniature painting is pervaded by sexual innuendo, including cross-dressing (foreground) and a lady with her bottom exposed (background). Masked women wearing  sop√®i  could, as fashion went by then, pass off as much as prostitutes as wealthy ladies.  More than in the printed costume books,   brightly coloured miniatures depict courtesans in action,   as they display their individual tastes in colour and fabric.   Indeed, scenes of flirtation abound in travellers  illustrated albums  (Rosenthal, 66-7). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The present was most probably part of a northern traveller s album a student, a young amateur artist, or nobleman. Indeed, it reprises genre scenes popular in the  alba amicorum  (Stammb√ºcher) of northern students or tourists in Italy, in the oblong octavo format which became popular in the C17.  Paper or vellum notebooks with miniatures, landscapes, genre scenes or costumes (often purchased in Italy), were used as a basis for Stammb√ºcher or were added by their owners for prestige  (Spadafora, 18-19). The Veneto was indeed an obligatory stop for the  peregrinatio academia  (mostly at Padua) or the Kavaliertour, undertaken in order to improve knowledge and culture; Venice was however the capital of entertainment. Besides verse, autographs or dedications from new acquaintances made along the way,  alba amicorum  included miniature paintings illustrating local buildings, costumes and social scenes. Commedia dell Arte, carnival (in the streets) and mountebanks, depicted with irony and realism, were popular subjects. The present appears to be based on personal experience, given the faithful though vague remembrance of the room, but also the bawdy details. .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Though the artist remains unknown, the style appears northern European possibly Netherlandish or German. It was probably the work of someone wishing to reproduce the memory of a glorious night out. (Scenes of student goliardic life are frequent as a personal  memento .) Or the northern artist may have been one of the  circle of Netherlandish drawers, engravers and miniaturists who had close exchanges with the Venetian region  (Zorzi, 172). Given the theme, it is most likely the work of a young man. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n [!] The list price is ¬¨¬£17,500 including VAT\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[MINIATURE PAINTING].","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859632693583,"sku":"XP1","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-14.jpg?v=1781793790"},{"product_id":"cartari-vincenzo","title":"CARTARI, Vincenzo.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good copy of Cartari s richly illustrated encyclopaedia of classical iconography, containing fascinating appendixes concerning deities of the West and East Indies by the Italian priest and antiquarian Lorenzo Pignoria (1571-163). This edition is considered as  the most complete  (Brunet): it was revised and corrected from the previous of 1626, the blocks were recut, and it includes two new woodcuts of the  creator god of the Egyptians  (p. 81) and of three cupids (324). \u003cbr\u003e\n Vincenzo Cartari (c. 1531   after 1571) was an Italian mythographer and diplomat, author of the first modern translation of Ovid s fasti. Born at Reggio Emilia, Cartari lived and worked in the entourage of the Dukes of Este at Ferrara.  Images of the gods  is his masterpiece, and one of the most widely read handbooks of ancient mythology of the Renaissance. First published in 1556 without illustrations, this work went through at least 25 editions in different languages. The first illustrated edition appeared in 1571, with woodcuts by Bolognino Zaltieri. This edition contains a different set of woodcuts realised by Filippo Ferroverde under the direction of Pignoria for his 1615 edition. As the editor criticised Cartari for relying only on literary sources, he designed these new images to include reproductions of antiquarian objects, particularly intaglios, cameos, medals and reliefs.  .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Pignoria s appendixes to Cartari s work (first published in 1615 and 1624) are permeated by the new 17.th. century interest in collecting antiques and exotic artefacts. The first two,  Annotations  and  An addition  illustrate a curious selection of  true and real images of the gods : these are ancient finds, such as statues, coins, cameos and exotic objects, which belonged to Pignoria s collection, or that he could see in Padua, Rome and France. The third section, titled  Images of the gods of the Indians , is the most innovative: extending the discussion to divinities from all over the world, it represents a step forward in the development of early modern ethnographical studies. Pignoria analyses the Aztec divinities of Mexico and Peru, remarkably depicting original idols brought from the New World and reproducing illustrations from the Codex Vaticanus 3738, one of the earliest testimonies of American art. Descriptions of Indian and Japanese gods   e.g. the elephant-headed Ganesha, or Amida, a  foreign  god introduced to Japan by the Chinese Xaca   are derived from Jesuit travel accounts, and many pages are dedicated to describing Japanese idols and statuettes. Interestingly, Pignoria believed that the inhabitants of the newly discovered regions  conformed the way of manufacturing their idols to the images of Egyptian gods , and illustrates curious comparisons between American, Indian and Egyptian religious iconographies. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\nCartari's aim was to provide artists with a complete mythological-iconographic repertoire of Greek and Roman gods, heroes and allegories.  Images of the gods  begins with an introduction on the origins of religion and on the structure of the universe, whose spheres are well illustrated in a fold-out plate. Cartari describes all deities in order, according to their association with general principles governing the cosmos, their powers and roles. Minor mythological figures are gathered around the main god to which they are linked. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n USTC 4018668; Sabin 11104; Alden 647\/46. See Harward It., 108; Graesse II, p. 56; Brunet I, p. 1601. Not in BM STC It C17.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CARTARI, Vincenzo.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859653108047,"sku":"L3828","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3828-1.jpg?v=1781793718"},{"product_id":"williams-william","title":"WILLIAMS, William.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A fine copy, in very fresh, clean impression, of the first edition of this famous, monumental and richly illustrated collection of views of Oxford and its colleges, by the little-known Welsh engraver William Williams (fl.1724-33). Intended as an update to David Loggan s  Oxonia illustrata  (1675), it is a rare instance of the rolling press machine of Oxford University being used to print a purely illustrated book (Gadd, p.21). The 60 years that separate Loggan s and Williams s works were a period of great architectural change at the University, beginning with the construction of the  Old Ashmolean , near the Sheldonian (Tyack, p.127).  The colleges soon followed the University s lead in commissioning new buildings. [...] while the overall numbers [of students] fell, the average wealth of the students increased. By 1700 only about a quarter of the undergraduates were being recruited from outside the gentry and aristocracy. [These] gentlemen commoners baulked at the idea of sharing rooms [...]; instead they demanded a set of at least two rooms. [...] The changing social composition of the colleges brought about fundamental changes in architecture and layout , with increasing interest in classicism (Tyack, pp.129-31).  Oxonia depicta  begins with a southern and eastern view of the city, a reproduction of the Agas map (1578), a very detailed plan of the university, a majestic extra-large folding plate of the Bodleian buildings, with the heraldry of illustrious people (e.g., John Selden and Kenelm Digby) and a long file of students and officers in academic dress, a couple more copperplates devoted to the Bodleian s interiors, and a plan of the Botanic Gardens. The remainder are devoted to the façades, plans, courtyards and gardens of colleges, with small cartouches with dedications to important alumni featured in the subscribers  list. One plate is devoted to the chapel of Trinity College and All Souls, another to the handsome garden of St John s College. The subscribers  list encompasses Cambridge colleges, Eton School, a dozen earls and a few dukes, including Buckingham.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WILLIAMS, William.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859666510159,"sku":"L4060","price":27500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4060-4.jpg?v=1781793690"},{"product_id":"ackermann-rudolph-ed","title":"ACKERMANN, Rudolph, ed.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An excellent, very wide-margined copy, elegantly bound, of the first edition of this lavishly illustrated history of Cambridge University, complete with 96 hand-coloured aquatints of colleges and their founders.  The fine aquatints, with their somewhat old-world flavour, are well suited to reproduce the spirit and to recall the antique associations of the old quads and courts  (Prideaux). .Born in Saxony, Rudolph Ackermann emigrated to London in the 1780s, where he started traded in prints and eventually opened a business in the Strand dealing in books, prints, medallions and artists  materials.  He was particularly influential in furthering lithographic illustration in Britain , and published  many important, elegantly illustrated topographical books  (Archer, p.14). Each section includes a history of the college foundation as well as lists of its most important alumni and benefactors to the early C19, with detailed biographies including interesting bibliographic information, such as the nature and fate of the mss production and personal collection of the C17 antiquary Thomas Baker, fellow of St John s, or the mention of the  specimen of a intended edition of  Aeschylus   by Anthony Askew, from Emanuel, published in Leiden in the 1770s, but never eventually completed. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Christopher Turnor (1809-86) was a Tory MP, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. Stoke Rochford Hall was rebuilt in Jacobean style by William Burn in 1839. HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1900-74) was younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI, and a great bibliophile. He was at Trinity in 1919, but not allowed to live in college by his father, for fear of his association with  bad company .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n . .The 1812 watermark and the later state of pl.73 (cf. Abbey) confirm this as the second issue.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ACKERMANN, Rudolph, ed.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859668541775,"sku":"L4156","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4156-1.jpg?v=1781793683"},{"product_id":"thomson-james-2","title":"THOMSON, James.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy of the second edition‚Äö a deluxe copy with 41 hand-coloured aquatints -of the  epitome of the  villa- book  (Archer). The British architect James Thomson (1800-83) trained with John Buonarroti Papworth and later designed several buildings in London, including Cumberland Place, near Regent s Park, and the staircase at Charing Cross Hospital. First published in 1827, and reissued in 1833 and 1835,  Retreats  is a collection of designs, plans and elevations for several types of cottages (e.g., regular, Gothic, uniform), villas, country buildings (e.g., parsonage house) and ornamental buildings (e.g., a bath, aquatic temple, rustic lodge, bridge and stable).  The text includes important observations on matters of style, landscape setting, function, and expression, and the plates contain designs in Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Gothic styles. The prose descriptions indicate Thomson s attention to his clients  vanities and pretensions, as well as their practical, social, and occupational circumstances. There are designs, for example, suited to  an active partner in a mercantile house, a  family residence, and  persons fond of retirement and study. Each design is illustrated in plan and elevation, and the elevations‚Äö depicted in aquatint and in many copies hand colored, are well integrated with surrounding lawns, shrubbery, trees, and distant hills  (Archer, p.30). \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\nJohn Piper (1903-92) was a British painter and designer of stained-glass window, theatre settings, ceramics and tapestry. His works are preserved in several UK and overseas museums. His wife, Myfanwy (1911-97) was an art critic and opera librettist.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"THOMSON, James.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868669518159,"sku":"L4196","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8965.jpg?v=1781793666"},{"product_id":"sadeler-aegidius-1","title":"SADELER, Aegidius.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAttractively bound copy of the first edition of this series of fine engraved Roman views a scarce Prague imprint by a major master-engraver. Its author, the Flemish Aegidius II Sadeler (1570-1629), was court engraver to the Emperor Rudolf II; many of his fine engravings were faithful copies of works by D√ºrer, Titian, Raphael and Tintoretto.  Vestigi  stands halfway between a guide to Rome and a series of picturesque views. Mostly engraved by Marco Sadeler, 27 plates are reduced copies of views from Étienne Duperac s successful  I vestigi dell antica Roma  (1575); 4 more were adapted after drawings by Jan Breughel the Elder, 3 after drawings by Pieter Stevens, and a handful inspired by as yet unidentified sources, probably including drawings by Breughel which have not survived (BAL). The plates are masterful examples of European  pittoresco  or  schilder-achtig , in which the  Rome that is  functions as background to  the Rome that was  as views juxtapose the ruined (often overcome by vegetation) and the late medieval. The Italian captions, mostly drawn from Duperac, provide narrative glosses to the scene: on pl. 2, the Capitol  looks toward the Foro Romano which is now called  campo vaccino‚Äö where of many ancient buildings once there only a few ruins remain ; letters mark the specific buildings under scrutiny, a Doric portico, part of the Temple of Concordia and  a temple of very beautiful architecture, the author of which remains unknown due to the very few ruins that are left . Among the portrayed antiquities are the Arch of Septimius Severus, the Temple of Faustina, the Temple of Jove Statore,  an architectural work of the rarest to be seen today in Rome , the remains of the Circo Massimo, the Pyramid of Cestius and the Baths of Constantine, as well as broader topographical views like those of the Isola Tiberina seen from the river, the Ponte Gianicolense and the Campi Flegrei. ..Giovanni Giacomo de  Rossi reprinted Sadeler s work in Rome in 1660.\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\nIn the C18, this copy was in the library of the Barons von Wiesenh√ºtten. It belonged to the banker Heinrich Carl Freiherr von Barkhaus (1725-93), called von Wiesenh√ºtten, after 1789, or his son Carl Ludwig (1761-1823). After studying law at G√∂ttingen and T√ºbingen, Carl Ludwig had an intense political career, at service of Duke Karl I von Braunschweig-Wolfenb√ºttel, landgrave Ludwig IX. von Hessen-Darmstadt and his son, later Ludwig I Grand Duke of Hesse.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SADELER, Aegidius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868672860495,"sku":"L3323","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8773.jpg?v=1781793659"},{"product_id":"overton-thomas-collins","title":"OVERTON, Thomas Collins.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.This second edition was given a  more commercially attractive  title and was smaller than the first of the same year, intended to be a  routine pattern book  for clients to refer to (Harris 338).  It contains  pastiches of Palladian, Gibbsian, Batty Langley  gothick  and generalised  antique  elements  (Harris 338) of architectural designs including the design for a triangular villa belonging to James Maynard (pl.41). It was built in 1766  on the edge of a hill, which commands a fine prospect of the country as far as Bath on one side, and as far as Tetbury on the other  (pp.16). He also provides elements of interior design, with each corner of an equilateral summer house containing a particular feature, such as a staircase, closet, or chimney.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The text describes each of the 50 plates, followed by the corresponding illustrations, mostly consisting of facades, often accompanied by a floorplan. These descriptions specify the main functions of each building, and include summer houses, temples, keepers  lodges, and castle-like villas, as well as possible building materials and ideas for decorative details, for instance the Apollo Belvedere, as seen in plate 18. All the designs are either symmetrical or centrally planned, adhering to classical ideals of proportion and symmetry, repopularised in the Palladian style, which aimed to reinterpret ancient architecture for contemporary usage.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The frontispiece depicts an obelisk and rectilinear temple set in countryside, a rotunda emerging in the foreground, with two labelled statues of Palladio and Inigo Jones set before. Below is a quotation by Pope, relating the style of Palladio and Jones to the Roman architect Vitruvius. It was engraved by Samuel Wale (1714-1786), a renowned book illustrator, producing over 400 original drawings during his career.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) was an Italian architect, founder of the eponymous  Palladian  movement, which influenced much of the architecture of the 16.th. to 18.th. centuries. His key designs include the Villa Rotonda (c.1590), a quadrilateral structure with four temple facades, placed in a  locus amoenus , on top of a hill near Vicenza, a possible source of inspiration for Maynard s villa.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Inigo Jones (1573-1652) was a British architect and follower of the Palladian architectural movement, credited as a key figure in the introduction of the style to England. His most famous works include the Queen s House at Greenwich (1616-1619) and the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall (1619-1622)..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"OVERTON, Thomas Collins.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868685115727,"sku":"L4184","price":4950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4184-4.jpg?v=1781793471"},{"product_id":"morris-robert","title":"MORRIS, Robert.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A very good copy of the second edition of one of surveyor Robert Morris  (c.1701-1754) more successful books, once owned by John Harris, a scholar of Inigo Jones, whose designs feature within. It displays his outstanding talent in architectural design and offers various types of classical portico and rotunda, as well as pavilions and mausolea in Egyptian and  Eastern  style. Morris was not an architect by trade, but rather  a barometer whose writings reflected contemporary changes in ideas about the basis of architectural order . From his profession he earned the reputation of architect, with buildings built by his kinsman Roger and son James Morris wrongly ascribed to him. Only two architectural works are attributed to him with certainty: the additions to Culverthorpe and a house on Burlington Street, both for Sir Michael Newton, to whom he dedicated his  Lectures . (Harris 318). \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The preface highlights the importance of  Proportion ,  Symmetry  and  Harmony , the key intellectual pillars of the Palladian movement, supported by the title s acknowledgement of Inigo Jones (1573-1652) and William Kent (1685-1748), who were both integral to the introduction of Palladian architecture in Britain. It also describes the style, ornamentation, and dimensions of 34 centrally planned and symmetrical structures, before exhibiting 16 further examples of chimney pieces. The former plates display beautifully illustrated elevations paired with a corresponding floorplan, as well as scale. They propose a selection of structures in a vast array of shapes, including rectangles, octagons, and circles, playfully mingling curvilinear forms with straight edges. The remaining plates present fireplaces in variations of a classical triangular pediment, there are a couple of examples of lunettes. Detailed sculptural and figural decoration are also included, in the form of busts, vases, animal heads and masks, as well as floral detail.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..This edition was published in the year following Morris  death, perhaps as a memorial and enjoyed more success than his older theoretical essays. He also wrote extensively on gardens, which he believed to be  interrelated and reciprocal  to the so called   genius of the place  . The importance of his writings has been greatly noted by modern scholars..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORRIS, Robert.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868685246799,"sku":"L4183","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4183-3.jpg?v=1781793471"},{"product_id":"peacock-james","title":"PEACOCK, James","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A good copy of one of James Peacocks  architectural treatises, published under the anagrammatic pseudonym  Jose Mac Packe . James Peacock (c.1738-1814) was architect and surveyor to the City of London at Guildhall  for nearly 45 years . He was assistant to George Dance the Younger (1741-1825) and was employed in his private practice. One of few books that he published relating to his professional pursuits, along with  A New Method of Filtration by Ascent  (1793), and  Subordinates in Architecture  (1814), it provides meticulous detail as to the dimensions of his designs, as well as an insight into the architect s creative process. It consists of floorplans and indicates the function of each room, labelled with a letter of the alphabet, associated with a reference list on the adjacent leaf, with elements of interior design included. It was probably used to explain to clients the various architectural options available to them. The engraver, Clark, may be the Scotsman John Heaviside Clark (1771-1836), though he is better known for his aquatint works. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The preface defends Peacock s origins as a  bricklayer s son  and counters potential criticism about the author. This is followed by a short introduction, which highlights the designs as intended for  gentlemen of moderate fortunes , whilst the appendix works as a guide, detailing steps one must take to oversee an entire building process, from acquiring designs and scale models, to supervising execution. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The book was published in opposition to the growing fashion for asymmetrical designs in rural architecture, in a period when architects were fascinated with proportion. As well as elevations, Peacock provides floorplans and tables of proportion for the components of a house: rooms, passages, windows, chimney pieces, etc. There is no detail as to the style or material. This goes against the trend of contemporaneous architectural works, which concerned themselves intensely on  style  in buildings. A rigorously mathematical approach to architectural literature, and a particularly interesting example within the subject..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PEACOCK, James","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868685476175,"sku":"L4196a","price":1250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/451364F1-152C-47CE-93EA-FD878A0008CA.png?v=1781793471"},{"product_id":"gibbs-james-1","title":"GIBBS, James.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A crisp copy of the second edition of Gibbs  second work focussing on the art of drawing architectural orders and their ornamentation, with a  more exact and easy manner than has been heretofore practised . This entailed a conscious effort to avoid complex fractions, which were employed in the works of Palladio (1508-1580) and Gibbs  rival, Colen Campbell (1676-1729), presenting difficulties for those wishing to follow their methods since  exactness on paper could not ensure correct translation to wood or stone . Gibbs instead divided  the orders mechanically into parts , splitting these further into progressively smaller sections, thereby preserving Palladio s laws of proportion and using a simpler technique. This system is clearly explained in the text corresponding to the plates and is further elucidated visually through dotted lines, numbers and letters labelling each image. This volume guides the reader through general proportions of each order, focusing on individual elements such as capitals, pedestals, dentils, cornices, bases, architraves, and larger structures such as arches, doors, gates, chimney pieces and windows. The plates are executed in a sketch-like line drawings, suitable for a treatise on the art of drawing. More detailed architectural drawings, such as the Corinthian capital, are divided, each side with a different level of detail illustrating the different stages of the process of designing the structure.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The portrait of Gibbs on the title page was executed by Bernard Baron (c.1696-1762), a French etcher and engraver, accomplished in engraved reproduction of portraits and paintings, including works by Holbein, Titian, Hogarth, Rubens and Van Dyck. The architect trained in Italy and came to be the pupil of Carlo Fontana. Gibbs is renowned for his influence over secular and religious architectural designs in the US and England for the following hundred years, extending even to the President s House in Washington. Among his greatest achievements are St-Martin-in-the-Fields, the Senate House in Cambridge and the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford. During his career, he experienced mixed fortunes, starting the early 1720s in poverty and suffering humiliation when he was the only prominent living architect whose name was excluded from Campbell s 1725 third volume of  Vitruvius Britannicus , despite it featuring some of his work. Despite these setbacks, Gibbs encountered huge success, his books proving to be especially popular, and went on to create some of the most iconic structures in England today..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GIBBS, James.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868687114575,"sku":"L4370","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4370-3.jpg?v=1781793468"},{"product_id":"villamena-francesco","title":"[VILLAMENA, Francesco]","description":"\u003cp\u003eRarely complete copy of a beautiful series of Renaissance engravings depicting 51 episodes from the life of St Francis of Assisi (c.1181-1226) with descriptive engraved titles, in Latin and Italian. All other copies appear to have at least one missing plate or lack the frontispiece. Canonised in 1228 by Pope Gregory IX, Saint Francis is best-known as the founder of the Franciscan order, a significant religious group during the Renaissance. Scenes include his birth (pl.1), death (pl.50) and St Francis with Popes Nicolas IV (1288-1292), Alexander V (1409-1410), Sixtus IV (1471-1484), and Sixtus V (1585-1590) (pl.51), all members of the Franciscan Order. Other recognisable tableaux include his reception of the stigmata on Mount La Verna (pl.46), a popular motif in art of the time, the apparition of and conversation with Christ (pl.14), and his meeting with the Sultan of Turkey (pl.13). The plates are the work of Italian engraver Francesco Villamena (1564-1624), born in Assisi. Having trained in Rome under Cornelis Cort, he studied painting and engraving, choosing historical and religious subjects.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe very detached images reflect the artistic style of the time, creating a sense of space, using linear perspective, usually rendered through the incorporation of orthogonal lines into the surroundings, and by careful modelling of the characters’ clothing. Light and shade are `created effectively by varying the direction and thickness of lines, as well as cross-hatching. While the events recorded date from the 12th C, the figures are characteristically depicted in contemporary garments.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[VILLAMENA, Francesco]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868690686287,"sku":"L4418","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9565.jpg?v=1781793465"},{"product_id":"durer-albrecht-2","title":"DÜRER, Albrecht.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Good copy in contemporary binding of the first complete edition of Albrecht D√ºrer s collected works in German - handsomely illustrated with c.400 woodcuts produced using D√ºrer s original blocks from the 1525-28 eds.  In the illustration of principles [of Renaissance art] lies the great historical importance of D√ºrer s theoretical writings  . They were the foundation of accepted aesthetic dogma until the C19  (PMM 53, 1525 ed. of  Underweysung der Messung ). D√ºrer (1471-1528) was a German painter, printmaker and draughtsman. After travelling in Germany and Italy, he returned to his native Nuremberg, and had Maximilian I as his patron from 1512. His fame spread throughout Europe thanks to his book illustrations, prints and cartographic works. He also wrote several theoretical works in German.  D√ºrer, like Luther, had to create a German language of his own. Like Luther, he took a more or less standardized chancery style as a basis and infused life into it, not by a futile attempt at humanistic oratory but, on the contrary, by listening to the man in the street  . In the end [he] not only managed to describe complicated geometrical constructions more briefly, more clearly and more exhaustively than any professional mathematician of his time, but also expressed historical facts and philosophical ideas in a prose style no less \"classic\" than Luther s translation of the Bible  (Panofsky, p.245). . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..At the core of D√ºrer s theoretical works lies the Renaissance art principle that the representation of an object should be faithful and proportionate to its appearance in reality. The first work -  Underweysung der Messung  (first ed., 1525) - is a treatise on measurement, and perspective using the compass and ruler.  It is the first literary document in which a strictly representational problem received a strictly scientific treatment at the hands of a Northerner  (Panofsky, p.253). It is a manual for draughtsmen on the drawing of linear geometry and polygons, with famous sections on the geometric rendition of the Latin, after the Italian model (and anticipating G. Tory), and Gothic alphabets, the latter following a new modular system whereby letters are divided into small equal squares.  If of anything, this cumulative method is reminiscent of Arabic, and not of Italian, calligraphy  (Panofsky, p.258). Another section is devoted to architecture, and woodcut n.34 shows gores and sections of globe maps. A couple of final woodcuts illustrate how to calculate where the shade of an object will be in relation to the sun, as well as two scenes of artists at work using a lens attached to the easel and a weighed lead wire to render the perspective. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.. ..The second -  Vier B√ºcher von Menschlicher Proportion  (first ed., 1528) - is entirely devoted to the drawing of human figures according to their natural proportions. The charming woodcuts provide specific measurements for full-page human figures   male, female, older, younger, thinner, larger   from the front, side and back, and in various positions, with a woodcut specifically devoted to the proportions between the fingers and several woodcuts of the head (even as seen from above). D√ºrer also offers observations on ideal beauty and aesthetics, just after the third part, and  it is in this \"aesthetic excursus,\" as it is commonly referred to, that we find the final statement of what may be called Durer's philosophy of art  (Panofsky, p.273). The third and last treatise is devoted to the building of castles and fortifications (first ed., 1527), with numerous double-page, folding woodcut plates of plans and elevations.  Strictly speaking the first treatise dealing exclusively with this subject  (Kruft, p.110). In addition to providing advice on strengthening existing fortifications, D√ºrer also  outlines a utopian city , seen as a  fortified citadel , built   as in a  job-creation scheme  - by unemployed poor people, so as to stop them begging, as had happened with the Egyptian pyramids (Kruft, p.110-11).. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..This fascinating copy was in the library of the Counts of Waldburg, possibly Maximilian Willibald of Waldburg-Wolfegg (1604 67), military commander and the governor of Upper Palatinate. He was polyglot, a keen owner of medical, scientifical and alchemical books, as well as, from 1650, of books on graphics, thousands of which he acquired from the Fugger family s collections. From 1938, it was in the library of the Herman G√∂ring School for Artists (Meisterschule f√ºr Malerei) in Kronenburg, inaugurated and patronised by G√∂ring as a place to establish the artistic style and pictorial propaganda of the regime, and to train its future exponents. Unsurprisingly, it was closed down in 1945. Its library included a few fine medieval mss. The school s logo reproduced G√∂ring s own device..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DÜRER, Albrecht.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868694159695,"sku":"L4365a","price":10750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/2B8BEA33-B15E-4937-A524-BDE934B42718.webp?v=1781793463"},{"product_id":"natalis-hieronymus","title":"NATALIS, Hieronymus","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A beautiful and pioneering series of large, detailed engravings, amalgamated by the Jesuit Jerome Natalis, faithfully representing the life, death and resurrection of Christ as narrated in the gospels. A close follower of Ignatius of Loyola, he considered imagination to be a central part of meditative prayer and believed that images could serve as a stimulus for deeper religious contemplation. The engravings are by some of the most talented Flemish engravers, such as the Wierix family at Antwerp, reputed for their talents in printmaking, specialising in religious subject matter, Karel van Mallery (1571-1635?), a well-known engraver of religious subjects and portraits, and Jan Collaert the Elder (c.1525-1580), who helped to establish Antwerp as a leading centre of printmaking in the late 16.th. and early 17.th. centuries. They follow the drawings of Italian painter Bernardo Passari, whose work survives only as drawings used to illustrate books at Antwerp and Rome, and some by Maarten de Vos, best known for his history and allegorical paintings, as well as portraiture. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The engravings are arranged according to their order in de Loyola s  Exercitia Spiritualis  and were likely intended to be used with it as part of the devotional exercise. Nevertheless they demonstrate typical Renaissance artistic interest in perspective, anatomy, and humanism. The artists skilfully manipulate light and dark to highlight the key moment in the narrative, allowing for complex yet legible compositions. Multiple scenes unfold within a single frame, but are separated by elements of landscape or architecture, allowing for entire chapters of the Gospels to be captured in one image. Alphabetical labels are also present and correspond to a legend of short Latin captions. These help to guide the viewer through the continuous narrative composition. At the top of each engraving is a title identifying the main action of the scene, any corresponding passages from the Gospels and the date ascribed to the event by the Church. The index at the front summarises the corresponding scripture in table form..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NATALIS, Hieronymus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868699238735,"sku":"L4352","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_3588.webp?v=1781793449"},{"product_id":"vico-enea-1","title":"VICO, Enea","description":"\u003cp\u003e.The first edition of Natale Conti s (1520-1582) Latin translation of Vico s 1557 Le imagini delle donne avgvste, dedicated by the author (1523-67) to cardinal Otto Truchsess von Waldburg .(1543-73). .Vico was an Italian engraver from Parma, who specialised in grotesque engravings based on antique paintings.. .Here he breaks away to use coins as his source material, depicting the key female figures of the Roman imperial court, spanning the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties, from the late 1.st. C BC until 96AD. Each portrait comprises a roundel, set in an elaborate classical architectural scene, bearing the side profile of each woman, accompanied by her title. Their hair is dressed in the contemporary fashion, following authentic Roman numismatic material, though the engravings are elevated to a higher degree of detail, as seen in the ornate plaits, thanks to the greater precision allowed by the medium as compared to coinage. A few roundels are blank, likely due to the lack of numismatic source material, including Cossutia, the first wife of Caesar, Servilia, the first wife of Augustus, and the daughters of Agrippa and Drusus, both named Julia. In addition to the portraits, there are also some engravings of other coins which were minted during their lifetime. Agrippina the Younger s apparition on the obverse of two coins, together with her son Nero, is particularly striking.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Each engraving is accompanied by a corresponding biography, both executed by Vico. The biographies differ largely in length, depending on the attention given to each individual in the ancient sources. At the beginning of the book, Vico lists his all his sources, looking to historians, poets, playwrights, satirists, and philosophers to retrieve biographical information. Livia, Messalina and both Agrippina the Elder and Younger are treated with particular attention. Furthermore, the women are categorised in various ways, for instance, Vico provides a list of those who achieved posthumous divine honours, equalling and sometimes surpassing the men who surrounded them.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The translator, Conti, was an Italian mythographer, poet, humanist and historian, whose interest in the classical world is evident in his major work, the .Mythologiae. .Though born in Milan, he described himself as Venetian as he spent his life working in the city. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VICO, Enea","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868699664719,"sku":"L4435","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20250213_154027-copy.jpg?v=1781793448"},{"product_id":"scott-giles-gilbert","title":"SCOTT, Giles Gilbert","description":".The original architectural proposal for an elevated road system by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960), complete with signature and date. The plan reveals an innovative intersection of two roads over two separate levels, complete with slip roads and a roundabout, paving the way for modern road systems. Scott created scaled plans for three structures around this time: at Bankside and Battersea in London, and the New Bodleian Library in Oxford. It corresponds most to his proposal for the Bankside development opposite St Paul s Cathedral, which also had a raised road and two intersections, but lacks the cooling tower. .\r.\r..Scott belonged to a family of architects; his grandfather, George Gilbert Scott, designed the Albert memorial and St Pancras Station, while his father established the prominent architecture and design company Watts \u0026amp; Co. in 1874, where Scott became second chair after his father.   A remarkable aspect of Scott s career was how he rose to the technological challenges of the 20.th. C, for which his training as a church architect could hardly have prepared him . He designed both religious and secular structures, including Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station, Waterloo Bridge and the iconic Red Telephone Boxes still in use today. .\r.\r..His style was an innovative blend of old a new, but he challenged the modernists by arguing against designs which lacked ornament due to their lack of functionality. He believed the  contrast between plain surfaces and well-placed ornament can produce a charming effect . The elevation of the walkway design conserves a sense of monumentality while referencing classical features in its use of pilasters to raise the structure above the ground. Despite his reservations about modernism more generally, Scott embraced the modern age unreservedly concerning transport and plans such as this reveal his acceptance of the dominance of the motorcar in the 1940s..\r.\r..The verso of the sheet bears a few furniture designs in different views, comprising several types of chair and on ovular table on an elaborate, curved stand. Scott has sketched the plan, elevation and section of the table, colouring the curved stand in red pencil and writing the proportions. Two different chairs have been drawn, both in their front and side view, one with a red seat and back, the other with a green seat and a crossed wooden back. In the lower right corner are the words  English Beech , probably alluding to the type of material intended for the designs. There are also some unfinished architectural designs, including another chair, a sofa and the elevation of an arcade, with a more detailed sketch to its left. .\r.\r..This sheet provides a glimpse into the mind of Scott, both in grand public architectural terms, but also on a smaller, more intimate scale..","brand":"SCOTT, Giles Gilbert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868700352847,"sku":"L3870","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3870.jpg?v=1781793446"},{"product_id":"perez-ignacio","title":"PEREZ, Ignacio.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A remarkable, extra-illustrated copy of the first edition, the additional leaves from the second, of this important and rare Spanish calligraphic manual. The first 16 ll. comprise the text and the remainder a collection of elegant calligraphic plates illustrating the principal letter forms then current, such as Redonda, Bastarda (and both combined), Francesa, Grisa,  De Libris  and Antiquo. The autograph on the title may be that of the Spanish calligrapher Francisco Asensio y Mejorada (1725-94), who produced numerous engravings for calligraphic manuals, as well as working in the Real Biblioteca. .. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..We know little of Ignacio Perez (1574-1609), except that he learnt from his father, Juan, also a calligrapher, and worked in Madrid as an examiner of master-calligraphers.  Arte de escrevir  was his great work. It begins with an introduction on the nature of calligraphy, the proportion and shape of the letters, techniques for preparing and holding the pen, paper and ink. A table at the end summarises the main multiplications required for the proportion of letters and Roman numbers, and (from the second ed.) a table providing basic rules for the multiplication of  reales  and  maravedis . The various woodcut tables, often signed and\/or dated, reproduce dozens of texts exemplifying the most common handwriting styles, especially variations on Bastarda,  in which lies his great merit, after the style of Francisco Lucas  (Cotarelo, II, p.165): e.g., Bastardilla, Redonda y Bastarda, as well French letter, Redondilla Peque‚àö¬±a Asentada, Antigua Romanilla, Lettera Grifa, Letra Latina, etc., the last few being printed white on black. A charming writing manual, uniquely extra-illustrated, and one of the earliest produced in Spain... . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..This copy includes all the plates attributed to the first ed. by Cotarelo y Mori. However, some are repeated, on different paper and with variations in page number and different woodcut borders. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.Only BNE, Harvard, BL and Newberry copies recorded.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PEREZ, Ignacio.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868705235279,"sku":"L4490","price":29500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4695.jpg?v=1781793436"},{"product_id":"thomas-william-1","title":"THOMAS, William.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Fine copy of the first and only edition of this most attractive collection of original designs by William Thomas, with plans, elevations, ceilings, sections and various architectural ornaments for country villas and own houses. Two ceiling designs are handsomely hand-coloured, and the subscribers  list includes major architects such as Robert Adam, who inspired Thomas  work, George Dance, to whom Soane was apprenticed, Henry Holland, James Stuart and James Wyatt, among others. William Thomas (d.1800), from Pembroke, was  one of the very few Welsh architects to publish works on architectural designs  (Hilling, p.9). In 1785, he presented this volume to the Society of Arts (Fitton, p.196). The  most approved taste  mentioned on the titlepage was the Neo-Classical style. As the Introduction acknowledges,  the night of Gothic Ignorance [having] being happily dispelled by the bright sun of Science , it left room to the development of classical architecture in the Renaissance. Thomas based his designs on  Convenience, Beauty and Stability , the  Extent, Soil, Form and Situation  of each location, and  the Foundation, Solidity, and relative Dimensions  (i.e., the rules of proportion). In the explanations of the designs, Thomas illuminates the reasons behind them, e.g., preventing  disagreeable effects , the creation of stairs to  conceal the Servants Offices , making a building look larger, a  display of grandeur , etc. The design for a villa on pl.3 accommodates also  warming machines  to be  fixed in the niches in the Hall and Saloon , i.e., Buzaglo stoves, or cast-iron coal-burning stoves very common in affluent London houses in the late C18. Typical Neo-Classical decorations include grotesques and Picturesque ornaments, such as grottos with shell-work and water fountains, with pl.27 being devoted to Neo-Classical furniture design, including a pier glass and a girandole for the drawing rooms of William Dymock and John Harris. Some designs reflect actual buildings, such as a Gothic temple for the Earl of Shelburne, the garden front at John Campbell s Stackpole Court, a plan of Surrey Chapel in St George s Road, Southwark, another for Mr Mirehouse s house in Pembrokeshire, and a Surrey hunting seat. A very handsome copy of this lavishly illustrated architectural book. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"THOMAS, William.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868706513231,"sku":"L4535","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4535-3.jpg?v=1781793431"},{"product_id":"price-john-and-5-others","title":"PRICE, John and 5 others.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA unique collection of eight pamphlets dated 1728-43 – I, III-VI and VIII in their first edition, I unrecorded – all devoted to plans and designs for the building of a stone bridge between Westminster and Lambeth. With 7 engraved folding plates illustrating various proposed designs. Westminster Bridge was built between 1739-50 by the Swiss Charles Labelye, after its plan had been opposed by the London guilds and waterman since the 1660s. Meanwhile, a wooden bridge had been built near Putney in 1729, to ease the traffic. Most of these pamphlets were written by major architects, such as Batty Langley and John James, later involved in the construction of the bridge. No similar collections appear to be recorded in any library worldwide, with some of these pamphlets absent from major bibliographies. It would be impossible now to replicate this collection. Together they illustrate the history of the long-standing debates on the construction and designs of this bridge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eApparently unrecorded elsewhere, John Price’s ‘A Short History of Bridges’ (1728) discusses some of the most important bridges, ancient and modern, as an explanation to some drawings by Price, including one of London Bridge and the bridge at Rochester, which this pamphlet was supposed to accompany. Price also mentions his design for the bridge at Fulham, on which he was working at the time. Although the pamphlet bears ‘End of Part I’ as a last line, no other parts appear to have been published. In ‘Some Considerations’ (1736), here in its second, much enlarged edition, Price illustrated his proposed design for a nine-arch Westminster Bridge, with detail on its dimensions and construction, and an engraved folding plate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBatty Langley’s ‘Design for the New Bridge’ (1736) was a thorough proposal for a plan of Westminster Bridge, using ‘chain arches’ instead of semi-circular ones, as others had suggested, to maximise the weight the bridge could carry. In particular, the pamphlet addresses how the river tides would affect the building, with detailed calculations; methods for laying the foundations of the piers; the total amount of stone required and its cost; and the use of horizontal cylinders ‘for adjusting an equal pressure on the sides of each arch’. The total cost for the bridge was estimated at £24,174.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJohn James’ ‘Short Review’ (1736) engaged with the designs and calculations of Langley and Hawksmoor, and the enthusiastic and knowledgeable contemporary annotator often agreed with him (e.g., ‘a notable remark!’). In particular, James criticised the design of the arches in relation to the calculated width of the river amd the ebbs and flows of the tides. Langley answered with his ‘Reply to Mr John James’ (1737), where he accused James of being ‘absolutely a stranger to geometry’, and of not understanding the construction of the arches (here illustrated), nor the calculations of the tides, which Langley explained here at length.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n \u003cp\u003e‘A Short Narrative’ (1738), written by an anonymous but expert author, summarised the deliberations of the Commissioners, in the summer of 1737, who had been appointed to oversee the planning and construction of Westminster Bridge. Written in the form of a letter to an MP, it concerned the suggestion (widely ridiculed) of Thomas Ripley, the official of the Board of Works in charge of reporting to Parliament, as he thought a wooden bridge would be sufficient. The pamphlet includes the MP’s reply, probably composed by the same anonymous author.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e‘The Present State’ (1743) is attributed to the Swiss Charles Labelye, eventually appointed to build Westminster Bridge. It includes a description of the bridge, as agreed with Parliament, and an account of the works that had been hitherto carried out, since construction began in 1739. The last pamphlet – ‘A Short Account’ (1739) – was also written by Labelye, and focused on the methods used to lay the foundations of Westminster Bridge in the same year, with plans, sections and elevations illustrated in 4 large engraved plates. This copy appears to be the only one, after that of the Royal Society, to include the four plates (see BAL).\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eA unique sammelband of scarce pamphlets detailing the story of a major public work in C18 London.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PRICE, John and 5 others.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868706644303,"sku":"L4536","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4536-5.jpg?v=1781793430"},{"product_id":"cousin-jean-the-younger","title":"COUSIN, Jean, the Younger.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Very scarce early edition, using the same woodcuts as the 1589, of this very charming manual illustrating how to draw portraits and full human figures. All C16 and C17 eds are rare. The French Jean Cousin the Younger (1522-95) was a prolific woodcutter, son of his namesake artist known as  the Elder . The Younger s  Livre de Pourtraicture  was intended as a companion manual to the Elder s  Livre de Perspesctive  (1560). There appear to be no surviving copies of the alleged early eds of  Livre de Pourtraicture , especially the first of 1571; the earliest extant is 1589, with woodcuts by Jean Leclerc after Cousin the Younger. The same woodcuts were used, as here, in later reprints by Le B é. Firmin-Didot suggests that Le B é himself re-cut the illustrations (col.181).. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.. Livre  is addressed to painters, sculptors, architects, goldsmiths, and embroiderers, among others. For each topic, Cousin provides a one-page French explanation and a facing full-page woodcut with several diagrammatic and artistic vignettes depicting the male and female human body and its proportions from different angles, from the head to hands and feet, the bust, the arms, the legs, and full figures standing or lying down, all clearly influenced by Michelangelo in style and by anatomical works like Vesalius  for the poses.  Printed drawing manuals, produced for artists as well as amateurs, functioned as pattern books of the body and sometimes included anatomy. Cousin s manual [...] shows the body whole and in parts, with several fore-shortened views. [...] no real anatomical explanation is given, and they are instead analysed for their proportions and measures relative to other body parts  (Kornell, p.130). An  Advertisement au lecteur  alerts the reader unskilled in geometry that a final appendix illustrates concepts such as  perpendicular ,  orthogonal , etc., an interesting reminder of the educational background of the average artist in the Renaissance. An important and rare illustrated book..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"COUSIN, Jean, the Younger.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868706709839,"sku":"L4477","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5354-rotated.jpg?v=1781793430"},{"product_id":"vitruvius-pollio-marcus-giocondo-giovanni-ed-with-frontinus-sextus-julius","title":"VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus; GIOCONDO, Giovanni, ed. [with] FRONTINUS, Sextus Julius.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A beautifully illustrated pocket-edition of Vitruvius  classic  De Architectura , printed in pseudo-Aldine\/Giunti format in Lyon - a very useful compendium for practitioners. Vitruvius (80\/70-15BC) was a Roman architect and engineer; his  De Architectura  is the only architectural work that has survived from antiquity. Divided in ten books, it begins from the basics (what is architecture, the building of foundations, the qualities of woods and stones), and proceeds with the handsomely illustrated examination of building structures (the decoration and proportions of the five orders of columns) and the construction of specific buildings (e.g., temples, theatres or baths, private or communal residences), down to their painting and the effects of humidity. Most famously, in book III, Vitruvius related the proportions of temples to those of the human figure a theory which inspired Leonardo s immensely influential drawing of the  Vitruvian Man  inscribed within a circle. Books IX and X offer intricate illustrations of machinery to pump water, astronomical instruments for calculations, and even two charming celestial planispheres with figurative zodiac signs and constellations... . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.. The edition was created through a careful assembly of the elements of the most recent editions of Vitruvius, published in Italy in the previous decade or so. Textually speaking, any edition of this text had to rely on previous editions published in Venice and Florence. The starting point could only be not the first, but the best edition of Vitruvius, edited and illustrated by Giovanni Giocondo. [...] The italic types that he actually used in the Vitruvius edition are very similar to those of the Giunti, and it is very likely that they were made by the Giunti of Florence. [...] From the title page, the book praises the presence of new illustrations [...], putting together the best from the previous editions and investing money with the goal of producing the most attractive edition possible  (Nuovo, pp.24, 26, 31). Indeed, the illustrations of this edition  are copied from the Giunta Florentine editions, and from the Como 1521 edition, in reduced form and designated by an asterisk  (Fowler). . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..The 1523 ed. had previously been attributed to Guillaume Huyon by Berlin Cat, and to Lucimborgo di Gabiano by Baudrier, based on the woodcut title border. Fowler highlights differences in the spelling of  propter  in the title, which may suggest the existence of two issues. That it was a Gabiano imprint has been confirmed by Angela Nuovo on the basis of archival evidence. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus; GIOCONDO, Giovanni, ed. [with] FRONTINUS, Sextus Julius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868707758415,"sku":"L2350","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2350-1.jpg?v=1781793426"},{"product_id":"starforth-john","title":"STARFORTH, John","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe second, enlarged edition of this scarce, lavishly illustrated work on Victorian rural and farm architecture. The substantial section on villa residencies appears here for the first time. The English John Starforth (1822-98) worked only in Scotland on churches, and civic and farm buildings. His written output focuses on rural architecture, and  Villa Residencies  is dedicated to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. Based on his  The Architecture of the Farm  (1953), the work was enlarged with designs for villa residences at the readers  request. Considering works on villa architecture up to that time insufficient to meet present needs, Starforth wrote his 'to furnish such a variety of designs as he trusts will be found suitable for the different tastes and requirements of the public , adding that  in the majority of cases, it is no more expense to build that which is pleasing and appropriate than what is repulsive to the most untutored mind . All plates come with a short explanation of the design. Divided into 3 sections, the lithographs illustrate villa residences (40 plates), cottages for labourers, farmhouses, and factor s houses (43 plates), and farm-steading and offices (17 plates). Some depict stone decorations, e.g., mouldings, chimney stalks, turrets, cornices, as well as decorated plaster ceilings. There is an interesting observation on bathrooms:  On the various plans   the baths are all shown fixed; but as many people prefer a portable apparatus, whereby some expense is saved, in such cases the space required for a bath-room can be applied to some other useful purpose; but whatever may be the opinions of those opposed to fixed or permanent baths, there can be no doubt of their efficiency for many special purposes . A scarce work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"STARFORTH, John","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868708905295,"sku":"L4234","price":300.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4234-1.jpg?v=1781793420"},{"product_id":"vitruvius-4","title":"VITRUVIUS.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good, clean, wide-margined copy of the first French translation, by Jean Martin, of Vitruvius   De Architectura .  It is a beautiful example of C16 French printing by Jean Barb é, who had, in 1545, printed the French edition of Book I-II of Serlio  (Fowler). This French translation includes a couple of additional text pages included for the benefit of contemporary French readers. As part of Book VIII, the section on the effect of the soil (its quality, moisture and composition) on the flavours of fruit that grows there is slightly adjusted to the early modern French context to shift the focus to viticulture, perhaps the earliest mention in print, of go‚àö¬™t de terroir, i.e., how land itself determines the taste and flavour of wine. \u003cbr\u003e\n Vitruvius (80\/70-15BC) was a Roman architect and engineer; his  De Architectura  is the only architectural work that has survived from antiquity. Divided in ten books, it begins from the basics (what is architecture, the building of foundations, the qualities of wood and stones), and proceeds with the handsomely illustrated examination of building structures (the decoration and proportions of the five orders of columns) and the construction of specific buildings (e.g., temples, theatres or baths, private or communal residences), down to their painting and the effects of humidity. Most famously, in book III, Vitruvius described the proportions of temples to those of the human figure a theory which inspired Leonardo s immensely influential drawing of the  Vitruvian Man . Books IX and X offer intricate illustrations of machinery to pump water, astronomical instruments for calculations, an organ, and even two charming celestial planispheres with figurative zodiac signs and constellations. Many of the very fine illustrations are the work of Jean Goujon (Fowler).  The majority of the other blocks are copies of Giovanni Giocondo s cuts for an edition of the Latin Vitruvius printed at Venice by Giovanni Tacuino in 1511, while 11 are based on the remarkable Como (Gottardo da Ponte) Vitruvius of 1521,   illustrated by Cesare Cesariano. [The theatre-scene blocks] were used originally in the second book of the Martin Serlio  (Mortimer). Appended to the texts are the  Annotations sur Vitruve , with an alphabetical list and explanations of numerous classical nouns and concepts mentioned in  De Architectura . The colophon mentions as printers the widow and heirs of Jean Barb é. The publisher Jacques Gazeau was married to Catherine Barb é, Jean s sister.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VITRUVIUS.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710117711,"sku":"L4551","price":6950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2025-09-10-at-12.42.25-PM.png?v=1781793410"},{"product_id":"purchas-samuel-1","title":"PURCHAS, Samuel.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmong the double-page maps – here remarkably fresh and clean, in very fine impression, with wide outer margins, and without repairs – shines Henry Briggs’ map of North America, produced by R. Elstracke before 1622. ‘The first printed map in English to show California as an island, it is one of the most important of the time. As a composite, place names are recorded reflecting the nationality of the discoverer, in English, French or Spanish’, with a note engraved in the map stating ‘California sometymes supposed to be a part of ye westerne continent, but since by a Spanish Charte taken by ye Hollanders it is found to be a goodly Ilande: the length of the west shoare beeing about 500 leagues’ (D. Rudderman Coll.). There is also a map of Virginia, published in 1606 after John Smith’s expedition, and one of Sir William Alexander’s voyages, illustrating New England, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The map of China – present in vols III and V – titled in English and Chinese characters, is derived ‘from Luo Hongxian’s general map in his “Guangyu Tu” atlas of 1555’, with the addition of inset pictures (Shirley II, p.1650).\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eA fine set of the first edition of this most famous illustrated collection of travel narratives, together with the fourth ed. of ‘Purchas His Pilgrimage’ printed in 1626. The most complete early encyclopaedia of American travel, summarising all the major expeditions to North and South America up to the 1620s, from Columbus to William Hudson’s voyage on the Half-Moon, Smith’s expeditions to Virginia, and those carried out by the Spaniards and Dutch on the West Coast. It includes dozens of stunning engraved maps of North and South America, the North Pole, China, the Middle East, and Greenland, among others, as well as woodcut facsimile renditions of Arabic documents, Ottoman tughras, Mughal illumination, and illustrated Mesoamerican manuscripts. ‘Purchas obtained the use of the copperplates from Hondius’ “Atlas Minor” (1607) […]. The great majority of the maps are from this source, and are here printed as part of the text. […] Purchas had further maps engraved: these include maps of India, China, Greenland, North America and Nova Scotia.’\u003c\/p\u003e \n\n\u003cp\u003eSamuel Purchas (1577-1626) was a cleric in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Whilst he never travelled further than a few hundred miles from his native town, he edited a collection of unpublished manuscripts left to him by Richard Hakluyt (hence the second title ‘Hakluytus Posthumous’), to which he added reports of sailors returning from their travels. The result was ‘Purchas His Pilgrimes’. ‘This great geographical collection is a continuation and enlargement of Hakluyt’s “The Principal Navigations”. At the death of Hakluyt there was left a large collection of voyages in manuscript which came into the hands of Purchas, who added to them many more voyages and travels […]. Purchas followed the general plan of Hakluyt, but he frequently put the accounts into his own words […]. The main divisions of the work fall into two parts: the first covering the world known to Ptolemy, the second coming down to Purchas’ own day. This fine collection includes the accounts of Cortés and Pizarro, Drake, Cavendish, John and Richard Hawkins, Quiros, Magellan, van Noort, Spilbergen, and Barents, as well as the categories of Portuguese voyages to the East Indies, Jesuit voyages to China and Japan, East India Company voyages, and the expeditions of the Muscovy Company’ (Hill). The four vols examine ancient voyages, customs and languages (e.g., the peregrinations of the Apostles and Patriarchs), the circumnavigation of the globe, explorations in Africa, Arabia, Persia, and India, voyages to Japan, China, the Philippines, and expeditions to the Middle and Far East. The fifth vol., also on world exploration, is considered the ‘fourth and best ed.’ (Sabin) of another travel work published by Purchas in the 1610s, especially important for the accounts of William Hudson’s explorations in North America.\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eThe double-page maps of North America are remarkably detailed on the coastal areas, showing the Hudson River, dozens of locations in California, Texas, Mexico, Newfoundland, New Britain, Canada, and the Caribbean. A highlight are the woodcut reproductions of unusual alphabets, e.g., hieroglyphs, ancient magical alphabets, and cabbalistic, as well as Arabic, Glagolitic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Dalmatian, and others. Purchas also included woodcut reproductions – among the earliest instances of facsimile in print – of Middle Eastern and South Asian documents (e.g., a letter in Arabic from Sharefoo Boobackar, King of Moyela; a letter in Bani, the Tughra of the Ottoman Sultan) and Ottoman seals, which he found among the East India papers he had access to thanks to acquaintances among the company’s directors. Astounding are the two dozen woodcuts reproducing Mexican illustrated manuscripts with detailed captions and explanations. ‘The idea of a visual compendium of all known examples of a given class of Mexican antiquities was first attempted by Purchas. […] He commissioned line drawings of manuscripts previously owned by Hakluyt and Thevet. […] After Purchas’ death, these manuscripts became part of the collection of John Selden, who bequeathed them, in turn, to the Bodleian Library’ (Miller, p.5).\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n \u003cp\u003eFrom the Library of the Admiralty Office overlooking Horse Guards, in Whitehall, formerly the administrative headquarter of the Royal Navy. A most appropriate provenance for a book of great voyages.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PURCHAS, Samuel.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710609231,"sku":"L4539","price":97500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/purchas-1.jpg?v=1781793407"},{"product_id":"alberti-leon-battista-1","title":"ALBERTI, Leon Battista","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An excellent, unsophisticated copy, in original binding, of the first edition in French of this ..milestone of European architecture   with nearly 100 exquisite woodcuts. A sumptuous ..edition, with a translation by Jean Martin, dedicated to Henri II and with dedicatory poems ..by Ronsard. About half of the woodcuts were based on those of the first ed. in Italian (1550), ..with the remainder inspired by the woodcuts in Serlio's Book III and the 1521 and 1548 eds ..of Vitruvius   De Architectura . The initials were originally designed by Kerver for his 1546 ..ed. of Colonna s 'Hypnerotomachia'.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72) was an architect and polymath. His  De Re Aedificatoria  , ..based on Vitruvius   De Architectura , was the first Renaissance book on architectural theory. The French translation follows the structure of the original, in 10 books, on designs ..(with observations on the five orders of architecture); materials (e.g., lime, bricks, plaster); ..construction (with considerations on the nature of the location, foundations, and how to work ..with different materials); public works (e.g., walls, bridges, drains); buildings for specific ..individuals (royal castles, fortresses, porticoes, town and country houses); beauty and ..ornaments (with aesthetic considerations and practical explanations, e.g., how to move or ..raise large stones); ornaments for holy, public, secular, and private buildings (e.g., churches, ..theatres); and building improvements (e.g., defects in buildings, how to manage water flow, ..and how to make rooms warmer or cooler). Although partly superseded by Serlio s work, ..Alberti s work remained a pillar of architectural literature well into the C17. Jean Martin ..had also translated Vitruvius   De Architectura  in 1547, for the first time seen in French; ..both works had the phrase  Art de bien bastir  in the titlepage.  Martin s decision [...] was ..deliberate and considered, as it served him well in reaching a more vernacular audience of ..builders  (Trubiano), whilst at the same time producing a luxury edition in format and layout. ..A very attractive copy..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ALBERTI, Leon Battista","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710641999,"sku":"L4522","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/alberti-1.jpg?v=1781793407"},{"product_id":"bisagno-francesco","title":"BISAGNO, Francesco","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this fascinating treatise on painting, a useful source for the legacy and reception of Renaissance Italian artists. Bisagno acknowledges the virtues of sculpture but lauds painting as the finest of the plastic arts. He divides the making of a picture into five components: design, drawing, light, shadow, colour, and composition, the last distinct from design in that it concerns the arrangement of the above components. These elements are then interrogated further, design being split into natural design, i.e. copying the anatomical forms, and artificial. Bisagno recommends copying Michaelangelo di Buonarotti (1475-1564) for the quality of his draughtsmanship but finds him difficult to emulate as a colourist. For colour he praises Giulio Romano (c.1499-1546) Polidoro da Caravaggio (c.1500-43) and Perino del Vaga (1501-47), comparing their methods of mixing paints. The greatest colourist, however, is Leonardo da Vinci, and Bisagno includes a brief catalogue of his paintings with their locations. Da Vinci receives further praise in the section on light, singling out a painting which he calls the Conception of the Madonna, then in the church of San Francesco in Milan, now known as the Virgin of the Rocks and in the National Gallery, London.   \u003cbr\u003e\n Nothing seems to be known of Bisagno, but he was likely a painter himself, since he demonstrates knowledge of the technical aspects of painting, especially in the mixing of colours, as well as the different methods of painting: fresco,  dry  and oil. Evidently a mannerist, Bisagno describes a theory of colour in relation to the subject of the painting, so that certain elements, especially of religious paintings, such as angels or the Virgin, should be elevated or subdued according to their significance, as well as a theory for the symbolic arrangement of the limbs in accordance with emotions. Bisagno also finishes the work with more practical advice aimed at jobbing painters, including methods of depicting land and sea battles, and appropriate subjects for churches, libraries and the cells of monks, fountains, gardens, music rooms, schools, and places of execution by burning and hanging.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BISAGNO, Francesco","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868717818191,"sku":"L4819","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4819-bisogno-2.jpg?v=1781793368"},{"product_id":"neudorffer-johann-the-elder","title":"NEUD√ñRFFER, Johann, the Elder.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Extremely rare reprint of Neud√∂rffer the Elder s (1497-1563) designs for a roman alphabet, first engraved in this format by Fleischberger c.1660, consisting of twelve exquisitely engraved plates with geometrical designs for letters. These fall into the Renaissance tradition of letter design according to the principles of perspective, derived from Euclidian geometry via Vitruvius (see Donald M. Anderson,  A Renaissance Alphabet (Wisconsin: 1971), pp. ix-xi). The letters appear two to a plate, each initial accompanied by an alphabetically suitable calligraphic verse in German, the plates decorated with fabulous and whimsical borders featuring mammals, insects, reptiles, crustaceans, shells, fruits, heraldic and religious symbols, rebuses and grotesqueries, musical instruments including bagpipes, a minute ceramic stove and a wagon drawn by four horses. These decorative elements fit with the book s stated purpose, which is for the use of youth, but the title-page also advertises its application to scribes, painters, sculptors, joiners, stonemasons and other artists. An often overlooked contemporary of Albrecht D√ºrer, Neud√∂rffer s Gute Ordn√ºng of 1538 was the first German writing manual or book of calligraphy and he has been called the founder of the art in Germany (ADB).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"NEUD√ñRFFER, Johann, the Elder.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868720931151,"sku":"L4805","price":6950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/ABPageNeudorffer.png?v=1781793352"},{"product_id":"ware-isaac-1","title":"WARE, Isaac.","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond Edition of a lovely book featuring architectural designs, plans and ornamental detail by Inigo Jones, William Kent and Lord Burlington. Plates engraved by Paul Fourdrinier (1698-1758), a Dutch engraver and print-seller. They feature a variety of smaller scale designs, all listed in the index at the front, including fireplaces, ceilings and cornices, decorated in classical style, as well as a few sections of rooms, porticoes, stairways and a theatre plan. Ware s engravings, as well as three designs that were not engraved, can be found in the Soane Museum. \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\nThis publication serves as  evidence of [Ware s] association with the Burlington circle  (Harris 468) and strengthens the claim that he was patronised by the Earl (1694-1753), a wealthy amateur architect, also known as the  Apollo of the Arts  and the  Architect Earl , who likely provided him his education and the opportunity to develop his architectural studies in Italy. His connection with Burlington, who is credited with the design of pl.30, comprising piers flanked by two symmetrically mirrored pillars, rusticated blocks of stone crowned by a carved meander band, garland motif and two seated sphinxes. Ware s name features on two very detailed engravings in the 1730 edition of Palladio s  .Fabbriche Antiche , .published by Lord Burlington. All three architects were instrumental in the introduction of the Palladian style to England. The large selection of plates and lack of text suggest this to be a pattern book, intended to show to clients to assist in their selection of various designs. The inclusion of scale and a variety of aspects enabled their actual reproduction.\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\nInigo Jones (1573-1652) was reportedly the son of a cloth worker, who, by 1603, had visited Italy long enough to study painting and design and attracted the patronage of King Christian IV of Norway. Having spent time at his court, he moved to the court of King James I, obtaining employment from Queen Anne, Christian s sister. Under the reign of Charles I, he completed the Queen s House in Greenwich (1616-1619), one of his most famous works and in 1619, after a fire destroyed the Banqueting Hall, he was commissioned to replace the building, completed in 1622.\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\nThe third architect featured in this volume, William Kent (1685-1748), was another prot.. ég.. é of the Earl of Burlington. He was sent to Rome to study painting from 1709 to 1719, under Benedetto Lutti, where he first encountered the Earl. He was taken back to England to decorate Burlington House in 1719 and by the 1730s had become a fashionable architect, his most notable building being Holkham Hall in Norfolk, which was begun in 1734.\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\nThe inclusion of locations for some of the pieces, such as Windsor Castle and Somerset House, invites the reader to visit them first hand, adding another degree of charm to the book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WARE, Isaac.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868721324367,"sku":"L4199\/2","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L41992-titlepage.png?v=1781793347"},{"product_id":"pino-paolo","title":"PINO, Paolo.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition of this attractively printed work on painting by the Venetian painter Paolo Pino (1534-65),  one of the first pieces of art theory in Venice  (Oxford Companion to Western Art). It takes the form of a dialogue between a Venetian and a Tuscan painter, in which the Venetian promotes the importance of colour ( colore ), while the Tuscan insists on the predominance of  disegno  or design.  The relationship between colore and disegno in the draughtsmanship of Venice   has a storied past. Undeniably most fundamental are the remarks made by Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) suggesting that Venetian artists neither possessed talents as draughtsmen nor placed due emphasis on preparatory drawing within their working practices   The counterpart to this denigrating perspective is the Dialogo di pittura of Paolo Pino, which praised the means by which Venetian artists harnessed colore to imbue their paintings with a striking immediacy  (Genevieve Verdigel,  Colore in Disegno  in Master Drawings, 58.2 (2020), p. 149). .. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..More than this, Pino attempts to present an idealised unification of the two elements of painting. His interlocutors discuss the properties of natural beauty, especially that possessed by women, describing the idealised or  sensual  portrait of feminine beauty perfected by the great colourist and Venetian artist Titian during this period. Such proportionality could only be conveyed by an art that unites painting, which is artificial, with the divinely ordered mathematics, hence the need for disegno. However, one cannot hope to convey the natural and life-like beauty of human anatomy in a painting without colour, which is the third part of painting, after design and  inventione  or invention. Attempting to reach a compromise between the two competing schools, Pino invokes Michaelangelo   chief representative of Roman and Florentine mannerism and therefore of disegno   and Titian as the twin paragons of Italian art; if they could be joined in one person, one of the interlocutors says,  he would be called the god of painting, and anyone who believes otherwise is the worst sort of heretic. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Pino s work functions as a catalogue of contemporary taste, influenced, of course, by his polemical stance. The preface to the reader mentions contemporary tracts on art by Leon Battista Alberti, Albrecht D√ºrer and the sculptor Pomponio Gaurico. Besides Titian and Michaelangelo, Pino lists a large  second division  of painters, dead and alive: Perugino, Raphael, Giotto, Giorgione, Bellini, D√ºrer, Sebastiano del Piombo, Parmigiano, Andrea del Sarto, Bronzino, etc. etc. Amongst these, Pino identifies his own  maestro  or teacher as Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, a painter of the Venetian school.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n. Quest  elegante Opuscoletto  (Cicognara).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PINO, Paolo.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868722340175,"sku":"L4452a","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4552a-titlepage.png?v=1781793341"},{"product_id":"vitruvius-and-agricola-georgius-ed-philandrier-guillaume","title":"VITRUVIUS and AGRICOLA, Georgius, ed. PHILANDRIER, Guillaume.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First de Tournes edition of Vitruvius s De architectura using the commentary of Guillaume Philandrier (1505-63), and the first Philandrier edition to be printed in France, first published Rome 1544, with Philandrier s epitome of the German mineralogist Georgius Agricola s work on ancient Roman weights and measures, beautifully printed. In contemporary morocco with contemporary provenance, from the library of Oswald von Eck, a German humanist. .\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n..Vitruvius s treatise on architecture was extremely popular with Renaissance architects, prompting many to emulate ancient Roman buildings, as well as humanists and antiquarians for the wealth of detailed information it provided on ancient Roman life. The commentary of the French architect Guillaume Philandrier on Vitruvius was one of the most influential, and is accompanied in this edition by his epitome of Georgius Agricola s De mensuris et ponderibus, first published 1533, which was intended to be used alongside that work, allowing readers to navigate it according to categories of measurement including liquid and dry, medical and veterinary, Greek and Roman, etc. It was also useful without recourse to Agricola s work, however, since it clearly lays out the divisions of larger measurements into smaller. There follow two indexes to Vitruvius of Roman and Greek words. .\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n..Oswald von Eck, who most likely commissioned the binding, was the son of the German humanist Leonard von Eck (1480-1550), tutor of Duke William IV and chancellor of Bavaria. Oswald studied at the universities of Ingoldstadt, of which he became rector in 1539, and Bologna. He was involved in the Ortenburg Nobles  Conspiracy to introduce Protestantism to Bavaria, after which he fell into serious debt and at his death in 1573 his goods, including his library, were auctioned off. The majority of his books were purchased by Erasmus Neustetter (d. 1594) and several are now in the W√ºrttemberg State Library..\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VITRUVIUS and AGRICOLA, Georgius, ed. PHILANDRIER, Guillaume.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723290447,"sku":"L4527","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"ville-antoine-de","title":"VILLE, Antoine de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition, first published 1628, of Antoine de Ville s sumptuously illustrated book of military architecture, from the library of John Evelyn (1620-1706), English polymath, diarist, horticulturalist and bibliophile.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDe Ville begins with a series of methods for geometrical calculation of various polygons, as well as descriptions of the components of modern fortification, before relating their application to regular and irregular forts, and those with less than six bastions at the corners, which included fortified ports, fortifications on bridges, etc. The second and third books contain De Ville s theories for attacking and defending fortifications and fortified towns, with historical examples, including mounting and repelling surprise attacks, fighting long sieges, conducting sorties, mining and countermining, destroying pontoon bridges, etc. He also gives advice on suppressing  seditions and revolts . De Ville s work was innovative in regard to the methodology that he set out for tracing the arrangement of fortifications, according to fixed figures for the base side of a polygon, at either 150 or 180 paces. His genuinely original contribution, however, related to his calculations for the bastions at the corners. Essentially, he developed the Italian Renaissance design of fortifications into a science. The plates depict birds-eye designs for forts as well as perspectival views of forts within imaginary landscapes, often combined with geometrical diagrams, which are in other cases contained within architectural borders.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Evelyn, famous diarist, horticulturist and bibliophile, left Oxford in 1637 without taking a degree and travelled on the Continent, including time spent in Paris, which he eventually left in 1647. He therefore purchased this book not long before his return to England, where he devoted his time to designing gardens at his house of Sayes Court, Deptford, and writing several books on horticulture. He was a founding member of the Royal Society and also wrote on sculpture, medals, theology, and pollution.  Evelyn was an active bibliophile throughout his life, who devoted much interest to his library. His 1687 manuscript catalogue   lists c. 4000 volumes, and over 800 pamphlets.   His years in Paris   helped to form his tastes for handsome books and bindings   made in both Paris and London, in both calf and goatskin to a high quality; he spent more on bindings than the average book purchaser of the time  (BOO). Evelyn proposed a system of shelfmark classification employing 24 letter shelfmarks and 95 word shelfmarks. In reality, he used all 26 letters of the alphabet but only 23 words. These bore no relation to subject matter, as he intended, but may have represented a purely practical classification by size: Hercules and Vulcanus were exclusively used to denote folio books (J. McL. Emmerson,  Dan Fleming and John Evelyn  in Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 27.1-2, p. 59). Many of Evelyn s books were sold during his lifetime: he instructed his son to   dispose of the duplicates, and to purge out many frivolous French books and other trash, to exchange them for such books as we want, and are of more use   (ibid.). This French book evidently survived, passing to Evelyn s descendants, and was sold at Christie s in 1977, lot number 1524.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VILLE, Antoine de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868724240719,"sku":"L4897","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot-2024-02-26-at-15.06.34-1024x1013.png?v=1780595252","url":"https:\/\/www.sokol.co.uk\/collections\/arts-architecture.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}