[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

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Book number: 9944

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture History prose

FONTANA (Carlo):

Templum Vaticanum et Ipsius Origo Cum AEdificiis maxime conspicuis antiquitus, & recens ibidem constitutis; Editum ab equite Carolo Fontana Deputato ejusdem Templi Ministro, atque Architecto. Cum Indice Rerum notabilium ad calcem locupletissimo. Opus in Septem Libros Distributum, Latinisque literis consignatum a Joanne Jos. Bonnerue de S. Romain. Et dicatum Eminentissimus, ac Reverendisumus Dominus Cardinalibus Sacrae Congregationi R. Fabricae Divi Petrie Deputatis.

Romae, Ex Typographia Jo: Francisci Buagni, 1694. 2 volumes. Large folio, 427 x 308 mms., pp. [xxxii], 489, [28] with continuous pagination through both volumes, but with errors in pagination, e. g., pages 205-206 and 343-344 repeated in the numbering.and plates sometimes included, collating [a]² p² b6 c-d4 A-2B4 2C6 2D² 2E-3A4 3B6 3C-3F4 3G1 3H1 3I1 3K1 3L-3V4 3X6, 79 plates, many folding, bound in later18th century calf, black morocco labels; spines wormed and tender, but holding firm. A reasonable set, with spectacular plates and complete. The Italian architect Carlo Fontana (1634 or 1638–1714) "mainly worked in Rome, assisted by his nephews Girolamo and Francesco Fontana (1668–1708), but he sent a model for the cathedral of Fulda, and others to Vienna for the royal stables. Among his other foreign works were the designs for a Jesuit complex in Azpeitia, Spain, in the village of Loyola where Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order was born. This grandiose basilica was a major influence upon baroque architecture of the New World. Fontana was an able artist and a good designer, but lacked the innovation that characterized early Baroque architects like Cortona and Borromini. In addition, he was more successful as an architect than as a writer. By order of Innocent XI he wrote a diffuse historical description of the Templum Vaticanum (1694), which included his project for completing St. Peter's. In this work Fontana advised the demolition of that dense nest of medieval houses called La Spina which formed a sort of island from Ponte Sant' Angelo to the piazza of St. Peter's; the project was completed under Mussolini, creating the Via della Conciliazione. Fontana made a calculation of the whole expense of St. Peter's from the beginning to 1694, which amounted to 46,800,052 crowns, without including models. He also published works on the Colosseum; the Aqueducts; the inundation of the Tiber, etc. Furthermore, twenty seven manuscript volumes of his writings and sketches are preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor" (Wikipedia)

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Book number: 9245

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture illustration 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.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 8741

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture topography prose

XIMENEZ (Andrés). THOMPSON (George):

A Description of the Royal Palace, and Monastery of St. Laurence, called The Escurial; and of the Chapel Royal of the Pantheon. Translated from the Spanish of Frey Francisco de los Santos, Chaplain to his Majesty Philip the Fourth. Illustrated with Copper Plates [AND] Thompson (George): A Description of the Chapel Royal, called, The Pantheon or, Burial Place of the Kings of Spain. Translated from the Spanish of Frey Franciso de los Santos...

London, Printed by Dryden Leach, For S. Hooper..., 1760. FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION. 2 parts bound in one volume. 4to, 184 x 109 mms., pp. xxxvii [xxxviii blank], 299 [300 blank], including half-title, engraved coat of arms on verso of errata leaf before dedication and list of subscribers; xi [xii blank], 60, 12 folding engraved plates at end of volume, contemporary calf, red leather label; upper front joint cracked and front joint slightly creased, corners a bit worn, some other very slight wear to the volume, but a good copy. The subscribers include the usual clutch of Royal Highnesses and the nobility, and luminaries such as Ralph Allen, the playwright and novelist Richard Cumberland, the antiquary and book collector Richard Fenton, David Garrick, John Hall Stephenson [sic, for Stevenson], Jonas Hanway, Thomas North, Lawrence [sic] Sterne, Voltaire, and William Warburton. The first edition of Santos' book was published in 1657 in Madrid, Descripcio?n del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial. The Escorial is said to be based on descriptions of Solomon's Temple; whatever its inspiration or source, it can easily survive the cliché of being described as one of the most remarkable buildings in the world. Thompson's translation is still one of the most useful accounts of the palace.

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Book number: 6871

Catalogue: Architecture

Keywords: architecture topography prose