Vitruvius, [Architectura] per Iocondum solito castigatior factus, Venice, 1511, later English panelled calf

Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus. M. Vitruvius per Iocundum solito castigatior factus cum figuris et tabula ut iam legi et intelligi possit. Venice: Giovanni Tacuino, 22 May 1511

The first fully illustrated edition of Vitruvius's work, as opposed to those with schematic cuts alone. It is also possibly the first use of Tacuino's famous dolphin title-page border, one of the most influential pieces of sixteenth-century ornament which was much copied with variations by printers such as Mazzocchi, Froben and Tory. Close copies of Tacuino's woodcuts were made for a 1524 edition printed in Venice by Giovanni Antonio and Pietro de' Nicolini da Sabbio, while reduced copies were made for Filippo Giunta's edition of Vitruvius and Frontinus in 1513.

The first edition of Vitruvius's work, the fundamental expression of the principles of classical architecture which greatly influenced the Italian Renaissance, was printed in Rome by Eucharius Silber c.1486 and contained only one diagram at the end of Book One. The present edition is also the first to be edited by Fra Giocondo, an epigraphist and editor for the Aldine Press as well as a working architect. He rebuilt the Pont Notre-Dame over the Seine in Paris and ended his life as one of three architects, with Raphael and Sangallo, of St Peter's in Rome.

Folio (302 x 202mm.). Roman type, 41 lines plus headline. collation: AA⁴ A-N⁸ O⁶ P¹⁰: 123 leaves (of 124, without final blank leaf). Title within woodcut border of flowers and dolphins, 136 woodcuts and woodcut diagrams, woodcut on E8v with a light hand-coloured wash, Tacuino's device at the end, woodcut initials, sixteenth-century manuscript annotations in margins. (Generally fresh, wide margins, a few very small wormholes at the beginning and end with minimal loss of text, small wormhole in upper margin of final 2 leaves, a few margins lightly soiled or dampstained.)

binding: Eighteenth-century English panelled calf (310 x 219 mm), sprinkled edges, modern quarter morocco drop-backed box. (Rebacked, extremities slightly rubbed.)

provenance: Frederick Keppel (1845-1912, New York art dealer), bookplate — John Burns, P.C., M.P. (1858-1943, socialist and Liberal Minister), with his signature dated 1916, his sale, Sotheby's, 24 April 1944, lot 627, £6-10s, to McLeish — Albert Ehrman (1890-1969, English diamond merchant and founder of the Broxbourne Library), his bookplate and that of the Bibliotheca Broxbourniana, sale, Sotheby's, 9 May 1978, lot 658, £1,600 — George Abrams (1920-2001, type designer), bookplate, and with his pencil note on the significance of Tacuino's title-page border to verso of endpaper, sale, Sotheby's, 17 November 1989, lot 236, £6,600. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. references: BAL RIBA 3491; Edit16 48320; Mortimer, Harvard Italian 543; Sander 7694