Art & Architecture Holiday 2022 - 66 - “No Architecture Book Has Ever Had Wider Influence”: 1721 Second Edition In English Of Palladio’s Four Books Of Architecture, Superbly Illustrated With 230 Engraved Architectural Plates 63. PALLADIO, Andrea. The Architecture of A. Palladio… Revis’d, Design’d, and Publish’d by Giacomo Leoni. London, 1721. Two volumes. Tall folio, period-style three-quarter brown calf gilt. $18,000. Second edition in English of Palladio’s enormously important treatise on architecture, including essays on building materials, the classical orders and decorative ornaments, with frontispiece portrait and allegorical title page, 218 magnificent copper-engraved plates (15 double-page) on 203 sheets, and 12 in-text engravings—all after drawings by Giacomo Leoni, handsomely bound. Although the first part of Palladio’s monumental work had been translated into English in the 1600s, it was not until Giacomo Leoni’s 1715 first edition in English that the complete work was published. Leoni’s edition ignited the great Palladian revival in England and its American colonies. Thomas Jefferson, for example, had many copies in his library and used Palladio as a basis for his design of Monticello. When ordering the capitals for the Pavilions at the University of Virginia from Italy, Jefferson specified that they be carved after particular plates in this 1721 edition. “Palladio is the Bible,” he told a friend whom he urged to get a copy of the treatise, “and stick close to it” (Randall, 151). Leoni’s edition was first published between 1715 and 1720. By March of 1720, the first edition had successfully sold out, prompting Leoni to advertise in the Daily Courant an offer to buy back any unwanted copies (Harris, 356). This second edition was quickly put through the press and delivered to all 141 new subscribers in 1721. Harris 684. Fowler 224. Bookplate of Henry Hoare, banker and art patron, owner of a “Palladian mansion.” Neat repair to Plate V in Volume II, Book IV; remaining plates and text clean and fine. A handsomely bound copy in excellent condition, with a nice provenance. Art & Architecture
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