VIGNOLA

£3,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Handsome copy, with plates in good clear impression, of this major, much reprinted work in the history of architecture. Jacobo Barozzi da Vignola (1507-73) was at the centre of the Renaissance European architectural world. As influential as Serlio and Palladio, he was employed by royalty (at Fontainebleau by Francis I), the nobility (at the Farnese s Roman villa) and the most influential religious (at the Jesuits Chiesa del Ges√π). Intended as a collection of plates rather than a book, Regola focused on the practical rendition of the five classical orders. As examples Vignola chose ornaments which can be seen in the antiquities of Rome , especially those which according to the common opinion appear most handsome and gracious to the eye; those which bear a plain correspondence and proportion to numbers . Despite the printing privilege imposed by Pius IV through a motu proprio one of the earliest instances of copyright including fines on transgressors (Casotti, Giacomo Barozzi , 512) the first edition was pirated. Plate III with the five orders drawn from Serlio s Libri first appeared in an early unauthorised copy. It remained in subsequent editions, albeit paradoxically going counter to Vignola s regola which saw illustrations not as models to be copied but as exemplary representations of geometric and proportional principles to be adjusted proportionally. (Thoenes, La Regola , 270, 272). The original copperplates of Regola were purchased c.1617 from Vaccario, the printer of t

• Binding: Hardcover

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