A 1669 CLASSIC OF ARCHITECTURE, INCLUDING DESIGNS BY MICHELANGELO

(VIGNOLA, Giacomo Barozzi da, and MICHELANGELO BUONAROTTI). The Regular Architect: or the General Rule of the Five Orders of Architecture of M. Giacomo Barozzio da Vignola. With A New Addition of Michael Angelo Buonaroti. Rendered into English from the Original Italian, and Explained By John Leeke… London: William Sherwin and Rowland Reynolds, 1669. Folio (measures 10-1/2 by 16 inches), contemporary full brown calf rebacked; red morocco spine label, raised bands. original endpapers retained. $5500.

First folio edition in English of Vignola’s 1563 classic, with 44 fine engraved copperplates of designs by Vignola and Michelangelo, in contemporary calf boards.

Eight designs by Michelangelo are included among the 44 engraved plates. Vignola (1507-73), pupil and successor to Michelangelo, was the leading mannerist architect of his day in Rome and was "another of the great protagonists of the Italian Renaissance, as influential in France as Palladio was in English" (Fowler 351). Following the lead of Michelangelo, "Vignola was among the first architects to turn away from the circle as a generating form for buildings, using instead the more ambiguous oval… Vignola's plates were the first to show the relative proportions of each order based on the diameter of the column" (Roth, Understanding Architecture, 113, 347). Vignola's works had great influence on architecture for centuries. This is partly because he presents with skill the rigid sequence and the beautiful relation of parts in ancient architecture, and partly because his writings present an easily grasped standard for work. These writings place him in the same class with Serlio and Palladio. Wing B901. Fowler 368. Engraved armorial bookplate; owner ink signature dated 1773.

Minor marginal dampstain, plates generally quite clean; restoration to board edges. A very good copy of this scarce title in restored contemporary boards.