![PACIOLI, Luca (c.1445-1514). Divina proportione. Ed. Antonio Capella. — De l'architectura. — [Piero DELLA FRANCESCA (1410-92)]. Libellus quinque corporum regularium. Italian translation by Luca Pacioli. Venice: Alessandro and Paganino de’ Paganini, June 1509.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/CKS/2017_CKS_14301_0089_001(pacioli_luca_divina_proportione_ed_antonio_capella_de_larchitectura_pi025101).jpg?w=1)
![PACIOLI, Luca (c.1445-1514). Divina proportione. Ed. Antonio Capella. — De l'architectura. — [Piero DELLA FRANCESCA (1410-92)]. Libellus quinque corporum regularium. Italian translation by Luca Pacioli. Venice: Alessandro and Paganino de’ Paganini, June 1509.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/CKS/2017_CKS_14301_0089_002(pacioli_luca_divina_proportione_ed_antonio_capella_de_larchitectura_pi025120).jpg?w=1)
![PACIOLI, Luca (c.1445-1514). Divina proportione. Ed. Antonio Capella. — De l'architectura. — [Piero DELLA FRANCESCA (1410-92)]. Libellus quinque corporum regularium. Italian translation by Luca Pacioli. Venice: Alessandro and Paganino de’ Paganini, June 1509.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/CKS/2017_CKS_14301_0089_003(pacioli_luca_divina_proportione_ed_antonio_capella_de_larchitectura_pi025137).jpg?w=1)
![PACIOLI, Luca (c.1445-1514). Divina proportione. Ed. Antonio Capella. — De l'architectura. — [Piero DELLA FRANCESCA (1410-92)]. Libellus quinque corporum regularium. Italian translation by Luca Pacioli. Venice: Alessandro and Paganino de’ Paganini, June 1509.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/CKS/2017_CKS_14301_0089_000(pacioli_luca_divina_proportione_ed_antonio_capella_de_larchitectura_pi025055).jpg?w=1)
Details
PACIOLI, Luca (c.1445-1514). Divina proportione. Ed. Antonio Capella. — De l'architectura. — [Piero DELLA FRANCESCA (1410-92)]. Libellus quinque corporum regularium. Italian translation by Luca Pacioli. Venice: Alessandro and Paganino de’ Paganini, June 1509.
First edition of a work highly influential on the arts and ideas of beauty in the Renaissance. Pacioli defines mathematically divine proportion and discusses its application to art, architecture, letter design, and perception of human beauty. The Divina proportione is of the greatest importance for the study of Leonardo, and in particular the plates depicting solid and open geometric forms after Leonardo’s designs (contained in the 1498 manuscript now in the Ambrosiana). Pacioli met Leonardo, who consulted him on matters relating to mathematics, at the Sforza court, and together they fled to Florence after the capture of Milan by the French.
The first section, dedicated to Ludovico Sforza and composed in Milan in 1497, treats of divine proportion and contains a summary of Euclid's propositions on the golden section (Paganini had printed Pacioli's edition of Euclid just ten days earlier) and a study of regular and semi-regular polyhedrons. The second section, on architecture, inspired by Vitruvius and Alberti, includes a treatise on the correct proportions of roman lettering. The third work is Pacioli's Italian translation of a Latin treatise of geometry by Piero della Francesca, who is unacknowledged. The woodcut of the geometric human head is after Piero della Francesca (a drawing from De prospectiva pingendi); the 23 woodcuts of roman capital-letter forms (with O twice and Z omitted) are original to this edition; and the 59 woodcuts of geometric forms are after Leonardo da Vinci; and the woodcut of the genealogical tree of proportion and proportionality is copied from the block in Pacioli's 1494 Somma di aritmetica. Adams P-7; Isaac 12513; Essling 1645; Mortimer Italian 346; Sander 5365/6; Stillwell, Awakening Interest in Science, 202.
3 parts in one, quarto (249 x 182mm). Title printed in red and black with strapwork criblé woodcut initial D in black, with blank E10, 86 (of 87) woodcut plates, including 23 depicting letters, the final plate depicting a genealogical tree printed in red and black, diagrams in margin of text, white-on-black woodcut initials with criblé, knotwork, floral or ornithological ornament. (Lacking woodcut depicting an open geometrical form [no. 30], some staining, wormtrack in inner margin of a few quires, single wormhole in last 12 leaves, several headlines trimmed, small repairs and internal tears in title, blank corner of second leaf repaired.) Near-contemporary vellum (lower hinge cracked, light wear at extremities). Provenance: a few early marginal annotations — Gio. Matteo de Portinaris detto il Trino (early inscription) – Carlo Garelli, architect, Turin, 1732 (inscriptions).
First edition of a work highly influential on the arts and ideas of beauty in the Renaissance. Pacioli defines mathematically divine proportion and discusses its application to art, architecture, letter design, and perception of human beauty. The Divina proportione is of the greatest importance for the study of Leonardo, and in particular the plates depicting solid and open geometric forms after Leonardo’s designs (contained in the 1498 manuscript now in the Ambrosiana). Pacioli met Leonardo, who consulted him on matters relating to mathematics, at the Sforza court, and together they fled to Florence after the capture of Milan by the French.
The first section, dedicated to Ludovico Sforza and composed in Milan in 1497, treats of divine proportion and contains a summary of Euclid's propositions on the golden section (Paganini had printed Pacioli's edition of Euclid just ten days earlier) and a study of regular and semi-regular polyhedrons. The second section, on architecture, inspired by Vitruvius and Alberti, includes a treatise on the correct proportions of roman lettering. The third work is Pacioli's Italian translation of a Latin treatise of geometry by Piero della Francesca, who is unacknowledged. The woodcut of the geometric human head is after Piero della Francesca (a drawing from De prospectiva pingendi); the 23 woodcuts of roman capital-letter forms (with O twice and Z omitted) are original to this edition; and the 59 woodcuts of geometric forms are after Leonardo da Vinci; and the woodcut of the genealogical tree of proportion and proportionality is copied from the block in Pacioli's 1494 Somma di aritmetica. Adams P-7; Isaac 12513; Essling 1645; Mortimer Italian 346; Sander 5365/6; Stillwell, Awakening Interest in Science, 202.
3 parts in one, quarto (249 x 182mm). Title printed in red and black with strapwork criblé woodcut initial D in black, with blank E10, 86 (of 87) woodcut plates, including 23 depicting letters, the final plate depicting a genealogical tree printed in red and black, diagrams in margin of text, white-on-black woodcut initials with criblé, knotwork, floral or ornithological ornament. (Lacking woodcut depicting an open geometrical form [no. 30], some staining, wormtrack in inner margin of a few quires, single wormhole in last 12 leaves, several headlines trimmed, small repairs and internal tears in title, blank corner of second leaf repaired.) Near-contemporary vellum (lower hinge cracked, light wear at extremities). Provenance: a few early marginal annotations — Gio. Matteo de Portinaris detto il Trino (early inscription) – Carlo Garelli, architect, Turin, 1732 (inscriptions).
Special notice
No VAT on hammer price or buyer's premium.
Brought to you by
Emily Pilling