[BROWN (John)]:

An Historical and Architectural Description of Corfe Castle. By a Near Resident.

Poole: Printed and Published by J. Lankester; Sold by Butler, Corfe; and Longman and Co, London. 1829. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 217 x 132 mms., pp. [ii], ii, 75 [76 blank], engraved (lithographed) frontispiece and four other lithographed plates, original wrappers, with paper label on front cover; fore-edges a bit frayed and soiled, frontispiece repaired and separating from text at base, with corresponding defect on verso of front cover and first preliminary leaf, covers soiled. "Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage. The first phase was one of the earliest castles in England to be built at least partly using stone when the majority were built with earth and timber. Corfe Castle underwent major structural changes in the 12th and 13th centuries.... The castle remained a royal fortress until sold by Elizabeth I in 1572 to her Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton. Ralph Treswell, Hatton's steward, drafted a series of plans of the castle; the documents are the oldest surviving survey of the castle. Lady Mary Bankes defended the castle during two sieges in the English Civil War. The castle was bought by Sir John Bankes, Attorney General to Charles I, in 1635.[25] The English Civil War broke out in 1642, and by 1643 most of Dorset was under Parliamentarian control. While Bankes was in Oxford with the king, his men held Corfe Castle in the royal cause..." (Wikipedia), Although the work was reprinted later, this first edition is located by OCLC in the following libraries: BL, Bodleian, Bristol, Victoria and Albert in the UK; Folger and Columbia only in North America

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 9944

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture History prose

PALLADIO (Andrea). LEONI (Jacques):

Architecture de Palladio, divisée en quatre livres: Dans Lesquels Après un Traité des cinq Ordres, joint aux observations les plus nécessaires pour bien bâtir, Il Est Parlé De la Construction des Maisons publiques & particuliéres des Grand Chemis, des Ponts, des Places-Publiques, des Xystes, & des Temples, avec leur Plans, Profils, Coupes & Elévations. Avec Des Notes D'Inigo Jones, qui n'avoient point encore été imprimées. Le tout revu, dessiné, & nouvellement mis a jour par Jacques Leoni.... Traduit de l'Italien....

A La Haye, Chez Pierre Gosse, 1726. Folio, 4 parts in one volume, 447 x 271 mms., pp. [viii], 67 [68 blank], xliii [plates], [69 - 70] 71 - 115 [116 blank], lxi, [iv], 3 - 46, xxii, [ii], 20 [21 - 23 contents, 24 blank], civ + 3 blank leaves, title-pages in red and black, full-page engraved frontispiece and full-page engraved portrait, with 12 engravings in text, 226 engraved plates, including 14 folding plates, contemporary calf (a bit dried), spine richly and ornately gilt in compartments, red leather label; fore-edges of 9 plates slightly soiled, binding a bit worn and with early repairs, but a good copy in more than acceptable condition. The translation from the Italian text of N. du Bois into French by Leoni, with the 1715 notes of Inigo Jones incorporated into the text makes this one of the most interesting and formidable editions of I Quattro Libri by Andrea Palladio (1508 - 1580), published in 1570. Palladio was born as Andrea di Pietro della Gondola, and, as the Encyclopedia Britannica notes "The name Palladio was given to Andrea, after a Humanist habit, as an allusion to the mythological figure Pallas Athena and to a character in Trissino's poem 'Italia liberata dai goti.' It indicates the hopes Trissino had for his protégé." The earliest and chief exponents in Britain of the Palladian style were Inigo Jones, Christopher Wren, Elizabeth Wilbraham, and the Earl of Burlington. I can add little to the praise or assessments heaped on Palladio, but I can at least echo Pope's lines in his Epistle to Burlingnton: "You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse,/ And pompous buildings once were thing of Use."

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 9114

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture aesthetics prose

PALLADIO (Andrea):

Le Terme dei Romani diegnate da Andrea Palladio e Ripubblicate con La Giunta di Alcune Osservazioni da Ottavio Bertotti Scamozzi giusta l'esemplare de Lord Conte di Burlington Impress in Londra l'Anno 1732

In Vicenza Per Giovanni Rossi. 1797. Small 4to, 237 x 178 mms., pp. 55, engraved frontispiece, 17 folding engraved plates, 8 full-page engraved plates, contemporary marbled boards, paper spine of marbled paper; spine defective with cords exposed, and covers holding on for dear life. The title-page refers to the publication in 1730 of Fabriche Antiche disegnate da Andrea Palladion Vicentinoi by Richard Boyle, Third Earl of Burlington and Fourth Earl of Cork (1694 - 1753), the architect, collector, and patron of the arts. Alexander Pope responded with his epistle "Of Taste: An Epistle to the Earl of Burlington" in 1731, the fourth of the so-called Moral Essays, or Epistles to Several Persons. The plates here, of the plans and elevations of the Roman Baths, were engraved by Antonio Mugnoni after drawings by Palladio.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 8271

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture aesthetics prose

POLENI (Giovanni):

Memorie Istoriche della Gran Cupola del Tempio e de' danni di essa, e de'; ristoramenti loro, Divise in Libri Cinque. Alla Santita' di Nosro Signore Papa Benedetto XIV.

In Padova, Nella Stamperia de Seminario, Con Licenza de Superiori, 1748 Folio, 442 x 308 mms., pp. [viii], printed in double columns, with 470 columns, nine folding engraved plates, lettered A to K, 19 folding engraved illustrations in text, including half-title, contemporary vellum; lower margin of half-title stained, no free end-papers, binding a bit chipped and worn, but a reasonable copy, with very clear impressions of the plates. Giovanni Poleni (1683 - 1761) had an impressive career as an academic, with skills in mathematics, physics, the classics, and astronomy. He built the first calculator to use a pinwheel design. In 1748, he was summoned to Rome by Benedict XIV to examine the cupola of St. Peter's Cathedral, which was in danger of collapsing. He indicated how the repairs should proceed, and the work was done in 1743 and 1744, under the supervision of the architect Luigi Vanvitelli. The Pope was pleased with the result and commissioned the present volume, of which 700 copies were printed, according to Poleni. The original design in the 16th century involved the talents of Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The restoration was not a "done deal" for Poleni. One of the consultants about repairs to the crumbling dome was Giovanni Bottari (1689 - 1775). He was not an architect, nor a mathematician, and he was the only person to object to the restoration of the dome, regarding it as unnecessary and irrelevant. Poleni mentions him a few times in the Memorie. The Italian scholar Calogera Lina Augello proposed a translation into English, but it appears not to have been published yet. Ralph Waldo Emerson described St. Peter's as "an ornament of the earth ... the sublime of the beautiful." The spectacular plates were done by Pietro Monaco, after drawings by Poleni and Antonio Visentini. Cicognara 3842; Riccardi II, 297 'Bella e rara edizione'; Olschki Choix, 17835.

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Book number: 8741

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture topography prose

SCALA (Giovannie) and POMODORO (Giovanni):

Geometria Prattica di chiarasa da Giovanni Scala Sopra le tavole dell Eccte. Mathematico Giovanni Pomodoro, traite d'Euclide et altri authori. Opera per Generali da guerra, Capitani Architetti ombardieri e Ingegniert Cosmograsinon che per orindarii professori di misure.

In ROMA Appresso Giovanni Martinelli M D CIII 1603. Folio, 330 x 225 mms., pp. [128], engraved title, 44 full page plates of Pomodoro diagrams and illustrations of measurement and 7 plates by Giovanni Scala, bound in contemporary vellum (front covers slightly wormed, small hole in spine; 24 leaves a bit water-stained, two lower margins repaired, inscription on lower margin of title-page inked out, some other general wear, but a good to very good copy of this treatise on applied geometry, intended for architects, builders, geography, and even military commanders, with the modern bookplate of Alberto Lualdi on the front paste-down end-paper. This was the second appearance of this important treatise, the first having appeared in 1599. The title-page is different, so it is most likely a second issue of the first edition, S. Brusaporci, "Giovanni Pomodoro (XVI Century)" in Distinguished Figures in Descriptive Geometry and Its Applications for Mechanism Science, 2016.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 10460

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture mathematics prose