Androuet du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bastiments de France, Paris, 1575-1579, contemporary calf gilt

Androuet du Cerceau, Jacques. Le premier volume des plus excellents Bastiments de France. Auquel sont designez les plans de quinze Bastiments, & de leur contenu: ensemble les elevations & singularitez d'un chascun. Par Iacques Androuet, du Cerceau, architecte. Paris: [Gilles Beys] for Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, 1576 [bound with:]

Le second volume des plus excellents Bastiments de France. Auquel sont designez les plans de quinze Bastiments, & de leur contenu: ensemble les elevations & singularitez d'un chascun. Par Iacques Androuet, du Cerceau, architecte. Paris: Gilles Beys, 1579

First edition of both parts. Androuet du Cerceau (1510-1584) was a designer and architecte du roi who produced detailed engravings of châteaux, showing their elevations, plans and gardens, and providing a valuable record of their appearance. It is generally considered Androuet's most influential work. The plates include Fontainebleau, Chambord, Chantilly, Chenonceau, Saint-Germain, Blois, Amboise and others.

Copies are recorded with 64 plates in the first part, as the final plate contains two engravings which are sometimes printed separately, and sometimes together on the same sheet, as here. The Harvard copy is bound in a very similar fashion (illustrated in Mortimer, p.30).

2 works in one volume, folio (391 x 285 mm). collation: (I) A⁸: 8 leaves. Woodcut initials and headpieces, 63 double-page engraved plates; (II) A⁸: 8 leaves. Woodcut initials and headpieces, 61 double-page engraved plates. (A few small stains, including along the folds of the plates.)