John Wolfe, Colen Campbell, James Gandon

A finely bound set of Vitruvius Britannicus, or, The British Architect.

• Sold as a set of 5 volumes.
• Colen Campbell (Scottish).
• John Woolfe (British).
• James Gandon (British).
• Vitruvius Britannicus, or, the British architect, containing the plans, elevations, and sections of the regular buildings, both publick and private in Great Britain... in III volumes [and] vol. IV [and] vol. V.
• [London]: [1751/1767?]; 1767; 1771.
• Folios.
• Illustrated with 390 engraved plates.
• First edition of volumes IV and V, later editions of volumes I-III.
• Engraved titles in English and French (imprint and date erased in vols I-III, and ‘In II Volumes/En Deux Tomes’ altered to ‘In III Volumes/En Trois Tomes’), engraved dedications.
• Parallel text in English and French in double columns.
• Subscribers list to volumes IV and V only, armorial and typographic bookplates to front pastedown of each volume.
• Contemporary half-russia, marbled boards, spines ruled and lettered in gilt.

The finest example of country house illustration in Great Britain, including views of Castle Howard, Longleat House, Chatsworth, and Blenheim Palace. 

An excellent, complete run of Colen Campbell's monumental work promoting the virtues of neo-Palladianism, with the two-volume continuation by John Woolfe and James Gandon bringing the work up to date to 1771. Finely illustrated with 390 engraved plates, including 101 double-page views, plans and sections of palaces, country houses, government offices, and churches, including Inigo Jones’ prospective plans for a new Palace of Whitehall — one of the grandest architectural conceptions of late renaissance England, of which only the Banqueting House was realized — and extensive coverage of Wren, Vanbrugh, and Campbell's own designs in the new English Palladian style. 

Published in the same year as Leoni’s English edition of I quattro libri, Vitruvius Britannicus represents the earliest manifestation of the Palladian revival in British architectural style — it was, in fact, Campbell who kindled the flames of Burlington's interest. However, unlike Leoni, Campbell’s intention was to show ‘that British architecture since Inigo Jones was superior to the work of contemporary Continental architects, and that British architecture should henceforth reject “Modern” practices in favor of “Ancient” privileges’ (Archer p.244).  

The resultant work was highly inventive, including the first published use of geometrical wall elevations to reveal the interiors of rooms, and the many famed abstract garden designs, which are drawn free of the usual distractions of people, place, and time present in typical topographic views. The continuation by Woolfe and Gandon (vols IV & V), which includes designs by Burlington, Kent, Ware, John Wood, Chambers, Adam and Paine, belongs to a much later phase of Palladianism, where the ‘concern was not like Campbell’s to reform English taste, but rather to celebrate its authority’ (Harris & Savage, p.496). 

Vitruvius Britannicus remains an indispensable record of seventeenth and eighteenth-century English architecture, illustrating the extent to which neo-Palladianism became the approved style of the late renaissance whose legacy can till be observed in the architecture of many of the greatest houses in England and the British Isles. 

With excellent provenance from the library of John Pratt, Marquess of Camden (1759-1840), a Tory politician who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland during the rising. 

Marquess Camden (armorial bookplate).

Eric de Bellaigue (typographic bookplate).