Author: PALLADIO (Andrea). LEONI (Jacques):
Title: 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....
Description: 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."

Keywords: architecture aesthetics prose


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