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VITRUVIUS Pollio, Marcus (70-23 BC) -- RUSCONI, Giovanni Antonio (ca. 1520-1587). Della Architettura... con centosessanta figure dal medesimo. Venice: Giovanni and Giovanni Paolo Giolito de' Ferrari, 1590.
2° (293 x 195 mm). Title with woodcut allegorical architectural border, c.160 woodcut illustrations, woodcut head- and tailpieces and historiated initals. (Front endpaper detached, occasional staining or soiling, quire BB browned, woodcut on H2r coloured.) 17th-century polished calf, spine gilt, marbled edges (rebacked, bumped corners repaired, light staining and scuffing). Provenance: two 19th-century Italian annotations on front endpaper, one dated May 1846, the other stating 'Libro rarissimo e difficile a trovarsi... le stampe sono freschissime, e prime prove, e prima edizione' signed Luigi Rossini? (possibly the engraver of architectural antiquities, 1790-1857).
FIRST EDITION, second issue with 11-line errata on verso of final leaf. Rusconi's woodcuts, 'a new and skilful rendering of many of the Vitruvian woodcuts' (Fowler), were begun as early as 1553 and were intended to illustrate a full translation of Vitruvius. The project remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1587 and the present work, with just a brief summary in Italian of Vitruvius's text, appeared in 1590. Woodcuts represent architectural schematic drawings but also biblical scenes in headpieces and various machinery, plants or agricultural and construction works and schemes of the zodiac. Adams R-960; British Arch. Lib. 2880: 'the quality of the cuts is high'; Cicognara 640; Brunet IV, 1463: 'Edition estimée, à cause des belles gravures sur bois'; Fowler 280; Mortimer, Italian 551.
2° (293 x 195 mm). Title with woodcut allegorical architectural border, c.160 woodcut illustrations, woodcut head- and tailpieces and historiated initals. (Front endpaper detached, occasional staining or soiling, quire BB browned, woodcut on H2r coloured.) 17
FIRST EDITION, second issue with 11-line errata on verso of final leaf. Rusconi's woodcuts, 'a new and skilful rendering of many of the Vitruvian woodcuts' (Fowler), were begun as early as 1553 and were intended to illustrate a full translation of Vitruvius. The project remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1587 and the present work, with just a brief summary in Italian of Vitruvius's text, appeared in 1590. Woodcuts represent architectural schematic drawings but also biblical scenes in headpieces and various machinery, plants or agricultural and construction works and schemes of the zodiac. Adams R-960; British Arch. Lib. 2880: 'the quality of the cuts is high'; Cicognara 640; Brunet IV, 1463: 'Edition estimée, à cause des belles gravures sur bois'; Fowler 280; Mortimer, Italian 551.
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