Main Content
Summary
Author: Vitruvius
Title: M. Vitruvii Pollionis de architectura libri decem. Cum notis, castigationibus & observationibus Guilelmi Philandri ... Danielis Barbari ... Claudii Salmasii (etc) ... Omnia in unum collecta, digesta & illustrata a Iohanne de Laet Antwerpiano.
Publication: Amsterdam, Lodewyck Elzevir 1649.
Price: Sold
Reference: 09540
Full Description
Folio. Engraved title leaf, (6) + 31 + (1) + 272 + (28) + 164 + 61 + (3)pp, with (2) additional pages between p. 252 and p.253, many woodcut text ills. Contemporary full vellum. A good, large and generally fresh copy. From the library of the Earls of Macclesfield, with early Macclesfield shelf mark VII.3.15, nineteenth century Macclesfield armorial bookplate, and small embossed armorial blind stamp towards top of frontispiece and first two printed leaves (as customary with books from this library).
A good, large copy of the 1649 Elzevir edition of Vitruvius by Jan de Laet, which had the merit for educated readers that it provided not just a text of Vitruvius but also De Laet’s own translation into Latin of Sir Henry Wotton’s Elements of Architecture and substantial texts on related subjects by such authors as Philandrier, Marcus Meibom, Bernardino Baldi and Alberti. It also includes the very first printing of Nicolaus Goldmann’s illustrated discussion of the Ionic volute. As such, copies of it were a habitual ingredient of mid-seventeenth century book collections in Northern Europe, and deserve a place in any significant institutional or private library today. BAL Cat 3500 ; Berlin Cat 1817 ; Cicognara 726 ; Fowler Cat 417.