Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus

De Architectura libri Dece. Como: Gottardo de Ponte, 15 July 1521



Folio (15 x 10 ¼ in.; 382 x 260 mm). 117 woodcuts of which 10 are full-page and one smaller block a repeat, one woodcut printer's device on title and another on last page of index, large white-on-black historiated and floriated woodcut initials, small white-on-black floriated woodcut initials; carefully washed, two tiny marginal mends in title, skilfully mended clean tear in leaf B8 affecting text without loss, light stain in fore-margin of quire "F", fore-margins of quire "Z" mended including some clean tears in last [errata] leaf entering text block without loss. Antique vellum, manuscript title on spine.

Adams V-914; Fowler 395; Kristeller, Lombardische Graphik 362; Mortimer Italian 544; Sander 7696; 

First edition in Italian, the first translation of Vitruvius into a living language, and one of the masterpieces of Renaissance book illustration.

Far from a handbook for the architect, Vitruvius' work is a guide to understanding architecture, broadly considered as everything which touches on the physical and intellectual life of man and his environment. Thus, apart from his treatment of town-planning, the qualifications of the architect, building materials, temples and the "orders," civic and domestic buildings, pavements and decorative plaster work, and water supplies, he also surveys the geometry, mensuration, astronomy, and technology of his time.

The translation and extensive commentary in the present edition is by Cesare Cesariano who, Vasari reports in his life of Bramante:"Enraged at not having received the reward which he had expected [for the present work], Cesare refused to work any more, and, becoming eccentric, he died more like a beast than a man." He stopped work after an argument with the publishers in May 1521, and as a result, his commentary ends after chapter 6 of book ix. It was completed by Benedetto Giovio and Bono Mauro. Gottardo da Ponte was brought from Milan to print the edition of 1,300 copies.

The woodcuts are, in manner and quality, close to Leonardo; Kristeller believed that the drawings for the illustrations were undoubtedly executed by a pupil of Leonardo. The woodcuts go beyond the classical domain of the previous illustrated editions; as well as depicting many Leonardesque mechanical devices, they include three full-page plans and elevations of Milan Cathedral, apparently the first illustration of gothic architecture in a classical text.