Traicté des cinq ordres d’Architecture, desquels se sont servis les Anciens. Traduit du Palladio, Augmenté de nouvelles inventions pour l’Art de bien bastir.
4to [17.5 x 12.5 cm], (4) ff., 1-114 pp., (2) pp., 115-166 pp., 15 pp., 167-229 pp., and several unnumbered blank versos, without the 1-leaf Privilege, both text and illustrations engraved throughout. Altogether 2 title-pages and 77 full-page plates. Bound in contemporary vellum over boards, somewhat worn. Internal light soiling and staining. One leaf loose. Genuine, unsophisticated copy. First edition, very rare in commerce, of the first appearance of any of Palladio’s work published in France and the first translation into the French language of any of his work. Traicté des cinq ordres d’Architecture is the result of the “collaboration” of three leading architects: Palladio, the translator/editor Pierre Le Muet (1591-1669), military architect for the Cardinal Richelieu before becoming a leading architect of Parisian townhouses; and Jean Marot, architect and famous engraver of architectural subjects, as illustrator who provided the engravings for this book. The first part of Traicté des cinq ordres d’architecture is Le Muet’s translation of Book I of Palladio’s Quattro Libri d’Architectura, first published at Venice in 1570. The main importance of this translation is that it became a chief source of information on Palladio’s theory not only in France, but also in England until the appearance of Campbell’s English edition of Palladio’s Book I in 1729. The second part of this work, with its own title-page and frontispiece, is Le Muet’s treatise, L’Art de bien batir, illustrated with 42 plates of doorways, stairs, and fireplaces. *Berlin Katalog, 2595; Cicognara, 573; Wiebenson, Architectural Theory and Practice from Alberti to Ledoux, III-A-13; Fowler, #216; Millard architectural Collection, French Books, p. 375-377 for second edition of 1647.
Price: $2,850.00