Les Dix livres d'architecture

1673. [VITRUVIUS POLLIO, Marcus]. Les Dix Livres d'Architecture. Translation [20], 325, [17] pp. text, with 65 plates. Folio, full contemporary calf, recently rebacked. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1673. A fine copy of the first edition of the French translation of Vitruvius by Claude Perrault. The book begins with an allegorical frontispiece by Sebastien Le Clerc and contains illustrations by G. Tournier, G. Edelinck, J. Grignon, E. Gantrel and N. Pitau. An extremely important book for the study of French seventeenth-century architecture, being conceived by Perrault as an encyclopedia of practical knowledge for architects and was of immense use to his contemporaries and architects for the next couple of centuries. Some browning to text pages, but overall a handsome copy of an important book. Millard French 168. Fowler 326-418; RIBA 3512.