Main Content
Summary
Author: Price, Francis
Title: A series of particular and useful observations, made with great diligence and care, upon that admirable structure, the cathedral-church of Salisbury. Calculated for the use and amusement of gentlemen ... by all which they will be enabled to form a right judgment upon this, or any ancient structure, either in the Gothick or other stiles of building.
Publication: London, "printed by C. and J. Ackers, in St.John's Street ; and sold by R. Baldwin, at the Rose in Pater-Noster-Row" 1753.
Price: £800
Reference: 08582
Full Description
4to. (14) + v + (1) + 78 + (2)pp, and (1) + 13 engraved plates (of which 1 folding). Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked. Plate 13 slightly shaved at outer margin without loss to engraved image. Early nineteenth century armorial bookplate of Howard-Vyse family (pasted over an earlier bookplate).
First edition of what has been described as "the first serious architectural study of a Gothic building". What was really novel about it is that its author's aim was not merely to describe the building but to explain to his readers exactly how it was constructed, with particular emphasis on the structure of the cathedral's tower and spire as devised by its original architect. Price was well qualified to do so, for he had himself supervised restoration work on the tower, spire and the cathedral's timber roofing, and he was also the author of a widely esteemed treatise on carpentry, first published in 1733. The accompanying plates are from Price's own measured drawings and two of them illustrate the "iron bandages" holding the tower together. An extensive list of subscribers includes a number of architects and craftsmen (and also Oliver Edwards, Dr Samuel Johnson's college friend who tried to be a philosopher but found that cheerfulness always broke through). This particular copy includes at the end a printed advertisement leaf for the second edition of Price's The British Carpenter ; the leaf in question is called for by the compilers of the recent British Architectural Library catalogue, but a careful reading of the BAL catalogue entry (BAL Cat 2614) shows that it is absent from the BAL copy itself, as it was from the copy of this book which was item 88 in our catalogue no.32, and our present copy may therefore be unusual in retaining a leaf customarily discarded by binders. Harris/Savage 705.