"THE FUNDAMENTAL ARCHITECTURAL HANDBOOK FOR CENTURIES": SPLENDID LARGE FOLIO FIRST COMPLETE EDITION IN ENGLISH OF VITRUVIUS' ARCHITECTURE
VITRUVIUS. The Architecture of M. Vitruvius Pollio: Translated from the Original Latin, by W. Newton, Architect. London: Printed for I. and J. Taylor, et al., 1791. Two volumes. Large folio (14 by 19 inches), contemporary marbled boards rebacked and recornered in crimson straight-grain morocco gilt, later endpapers.
First edition in English of the complete translation of Vitruvius' classic Ten Books of Architecture, beautifully illustrated with 46 fine large folio copper-engraved plates. A magnificent large copy.
First published in Rome in 1486, Vitruvius "is really the first of the great books on architecture and certainly the most influential of them all" (Avery 2). Written in the first century B.C., the manuscript of De Architectura was lost for some time and rediscovered in the 15th century. "This handbook on classical architecture is the only Roman work inspired by Greek architecture that has come down to us. It is therefore important as our prime source of many lost Greek writings on the subject and as a guide to archaeological research in Italy and Greece. By exemplifying the principles of classical architecture it became the fundamental architectural handbook for centuries… The classical tradition of building, with its regular proportion and symmetry and the three orders— Doric, Ionic and Corinthian— derives from this book… Alberti, Bramante, Ghiberti, Michelangelo, Vignola, Palladio and many others were directly inspired by Vitruvius" (PMM 26). The English translator, William Newton, was a practicing architect who worked on the new chapel at Greenwich Hospital and was a protégé of James Stuart, whose Antiquities of Athens (1788) he helped finish. Newton spent a year in Italy in 1766-1767, probably with the idea of preparing a book of this kind. In 1771 he published the earliest English translation of the first five books of Vitruvius; this complete edition did not appear until twenty years later, when William's brother and executor James published the translation of the remaining five books from the manuscript left at William's death. This is the second issue of Volume I, containing the first five books, made up of sheets left over from the 1771 edition, with new preliminaries. However, the plates of the first volume, although also repeated from the 1771 printing, were in many cases redrawn or retouched, so it is not entirely accurate to describe the present first volume simply as a reissue of the earlier publication. Volume II is a first edition, containing the second five books. Complete with frontispiece portrait of Newton and 52 figures on 26 engraved plates to accompany the first volume and 65 figures on 20 engraved plates in the second. This set contains the original imprint statement in Volume I, with the paste-on imprint label with William's brother, James, identified as publisher in Volume II (most copies contain this label in both volumes). Fowler 428. Harris, British Architectural Books and Writers, 464-66. See Avery 2.
Only the occasional spot of foxing; plates with mild toning to outer margins only, engravings fine. An attractive, near-fine copy in professionally restored contemporary marbled boards.