![VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus (fl. 27 B.C.). [De architectura]. Edited by Fra Giovanni Giocondo (1433-1515). Venice: Giovanni Tacuino, 22 May 1511.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1998/NYP/1998_NYP_08854_0223_000(104751).jpg?w=1)
Details
VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus (fl. 27 B.C.). [De architectura]. Edited by Fra Giovanni Giocondo (1433-1515). Venice: Giovanni Tacuino, 22 May 1511.
2o (311 x 214 mm). Collation: AA4; A-N8 O6; P10. 124 leaves, P10 blank (the register on P9r incorrectly calls quire O quaternus). Roman type, a few words in Greek, shoulder notes, index at end in triple column. Four-piece decorative woodcut title border with scrolling foliage and dolphin motifs, 136 woodcut illustrations and diagrams in the text, most within double rule borders, printer's device on P9v (Kristeller 326), one 9-line and ten 7-line woodcut initials. THE INITIALS FINELY ILLUMINATED BY A CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN ARTIST in burnished gold on tricolor red, blue and green grounds within square black ink borders and with white penwork infill and border decoration, illuminated coat-of-arms at foot of the opening text page (gueules, chevron and two cocks argent), within a gold-bordered circular medallion in blue with white penwork, framed on either side by curling penwork decoration with gold dots and flowers in pink, green, red and blue, inner border decoration of six gold disks and drops with penwork tendrils. Title-border and 8 of the woodcuts delicately colored in wash, perhaps in the 18th century. (Light marginal dampstaining touching text at end, title with a few small marginal tears, one touching woodcut border and patched on verso, small single wormhole penetrating text block, a few other wormholes to first and last dozen leaves, slight staining to N4-6.) Contemporary Italian blind-stamped half goatskin over wooden boards, foliate tool repeated to form a border, ropework tools in central panel, pair of brass fore-edge catches on back cover, remains of clasps on front cover, flat spine with geometrical design of blind fillets, early manuscript paper label, vellum spine liners cut from a 15th-century manuscript, vellum front free endleaf, fore-edges with title lettered in ink (covers slightly wormed, restoration to foot of spine); modern morocco-backed folding case.
Provenance: Illuminated coat-of-arms perhaps that of Agostino Gallo, one of the publishers of the 1521 Como edition of Vitruvius (see lot ...); Ivo de Bellais (ownership inscriptions in a contemporary humanist hand on AA4v and at end, numerous neat marginal annotations in the same hand); Marsilius Casilinus, jurisconsult (18th-century inscription on vellum endleaf); Ferrantes Franchus (18th-century signature on title); remains of wax seal-stamp on verso of title, washed rectangular inkstamp in lower margins of title-leaf and C1.
FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION. The three previous editions contained a few schematic woodcut diagrams, but this was the first to be extensively illustrated with woodcuts of architectural details and plans, machinery in use, etc. Tacuino's woodcut title border with dolphins, "one of the most influential pieces of ornamentation of the sixteenth century" (Mortimer), was apparently printed here for the first time. First printed in Rome by Eucharius Silber ca. 1486, Vitruvius's treatise on the principles of classical Greek architecture, the only such work of Antiquity to survive, was considered the supreme authority by Italian Renaissance architects and was the single most influential work for the later development of European architecture. This edition, dedicated to Pope Julius II, was edited by the Veronese architect, epigraphist and editor Fra Giovanni Giocondo, who during the last year of his life collaborated with Raphael and Sangallo on St. Peter's after Bramante's death in 1514.
FINE COPY in a strictly contemporary, possibly Milanese, binding. Adams V-902; Essling 1702; Fowler 393; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 543; Sander 7694; cf. PMM 26; Norman 2157.
2
Provenance: Illuminated coat-of-arms perhaps that of Agostino Gallo, one of the publishers of the 1521 Como edition of Vitruvius (see lot ...); Ivo de Bellais (ownership inscriptions in a contemporary humanist hand on AA4v and at end, numerous neat marginal annotations in the same hand); Marsilius Casilinus, jurisconsult (18th-century inscription on vellum endleaf); Ferrantes Franchus (18th-century signature on title); remains of wax seal-stamp on verso of title, washed rectangular inkstamp in lower margins of title-leaf and C1.
FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION. The three previous editions contained a few schematic woodcut diagrams, but this was the first to be extensively illustrated with woodcuts of architectural details and plans, machinery in use, etc. Tacuino's woodcut title border with dolphins, "one of the most influential pieces of ornamentation of the sixteenth century" (Mortimer), was apparently printed here for the first time. First printed in Rome by Eucharius Silber ca. 1486, Vitruvius's treatise on the principles of classical Greek architecture, the only such work of Antiquity to survive, was considered the supreme authority by Italian Renaissance architects and was the single most influential work for the later development of European architecture. This edition, dedicated to Pope Julius II, was edited by the Veronese architect, epigraphist and editor Fra Giovanni Giocondo, who during the last year of his life collaborated with Raphael and Sangallo on St. Peter's after Bramante's death in 1514.
FINE COPY in a strictly contemporary, possibly Milanese, binding. Adams V-902; Essling 1702; Fowler 393; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 543; Sander 7694; cf. PMM 26; Norman 2157.