17 - [ARCHITECTURE]. POZZO (Andrea). Rules and Examples of Perspective Proper for Painters and Architects, etc. In English and Latin: Containing a Most Easy and Expeditious Method to Delineate in Perspective All Designs Relating to Architecture...

[ARCHITECTURE]. POZZO (Andrea). Rules and Examples of Perspective Proper for Painters and Architects, etc. In English and Latin: Containing a Most Easy and Expeditious Method to Delineate in Perspective All Designs Relating to Architecture... One of the most important treatises on Baroque architecture in its original English edition, illustrated with 101 engraved plates, 3 vignettes, and over 200 copperplate initials. London, Benjamin Motte, 1707. Folio (41 x 26 cm), cardboard binding covered in off-white vellum, spine decorated with guilloché faux raised bands surrounded by gilded garlands, covers framed by a gilded frieze of antique-style scrolls and palmettes, and the front cover bearing the title in Latin in gold lettering, red edges. Unpaginated, 104 engraved plates, including one frontispiece and 100 for the main text, approximately 200 engraved initials. In Latin and English. A few areas of vellum paper missing from the binding, particularly at the fore-edges; soiling on the binding; a few plates slightly soiled; and very rare foxing. Main frontispiece missing. English first edition of this rare and impressive treatise on Baroque architecture. This edition, based on the translation by John James of Greenwich (1673–1746) of the work by the Italian Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709) first published in 1693, is complete with all its chisel-engraved plates—including three vignettes (title pages and the banner of the dedicatory epistle to Queen Anne)—as well as its second frontispiece and its 100 architectural plates with accompanying text. Only the first frontispiece is missing. This manual, one of the most important in the history of European Baroque architecture and later translated into several languages, is preceded by an “Advice to Beginners” signed by John Vanbrugh (1664–1726), Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736), and Christopher Wren (1632–1723)—the latter to whom the British owe, among other things, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The text is arranged alongside the plates in two columns (English and Latin). Each major paragraph is preceded by a copper-engraved initial, numbering about 200 in total; these are beautifully crafted and rival the quality of execution and composition of the full-page engravings. Two hand-drawn ex-libris (1896 and 1841). A very fine copy in good condition.