VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus; GIOCONDO, Giovanni, ed. [with] FRONTINUS, Sextus Julius.
ILLUSTRATED ARCHITECTURAL COMPENDIUM
De Architectura. [with] De Aquis Urbis Romae.
[Lyon], [Lucimborgo di Gabiano]., 1523.£3,750.00
8vo. 2 works in 1, continuous signature, separate pagination, ff. [195, i.e., 179], [15]; [22]. Italic letter, occasional Roman. Title in red and black, within decorated woodcut border, 171 full-page or smaller text woodcuts of plans, elevations, machinery, and astronomical instruments and diagrams. Intermittent browning, fore-edge trimmed short, occasionally touching side-notes, minor repair at head of title, at gutter of a few early ll., and to outer blank margin of last. A good copy in C18 vellum over boards, spine gilt with a few small wormholes, a.e.r., C19 bookplate of James Marsden Jr, Liverpool, to front pastedown, ms ‘445’ and ‘A.H.M.’ to blank title margins, c1700 ms sketch of human face, VIII and illegible ms sentence ‘Al C(?)…’ to last verso (blank).
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.
‘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).
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.
USTC 145582; Baudrier VII, 167; BAL 3494; Berlin Kat 1801; Fowler 397; Sander 7698; Mortimer. Not in Mortimer. A. Nuovo, ‘Transferring humanism: The edition of Vitruvius by Lucimborgo de Gabiano (1523)’, in Lux Librorum, ed. G. Proot & al. (2018), pp.17-37.In stock
