Le Due Regole della Prospettiva Prattica...

Bologna: Gioseffo Longhi, 1682. Hardcover. Very Good. Folio (332x228mm). [10], 145pp., [7]. Engraved additional title by Cherubino Alberti, woodcut decoration on title-p., woodcut initials, woodcut and engraved diagrams and geometric illustrations (some full-page) demonstrating perspective, woodcut device on final verso. In Italian. Edited with commentary by Ignazio Danti. Contemporary vellum over modern pasteboard, ms. title to spine; (text block loose in binding, title frayed and with bookseller's stamps, moderately browned, dampstains, marginal worming toward end, few paper repairs). Sold as is.

Vignola was one of the great Italian architects of the 16th century Mannerist style. Of his two published works, "Prospettiva Prattica" was Vignola's second treatise and was published ten years after his death by Ignazio Danti, professor in mathematics at Bologna. In it, Vignola argues for a naturalistic justification of linear perspective by explaining the anatomy and physiology of the human eye. He favored one-point perspective rather than two-point methods such as the bifocal construction. With many fine engravings by Vignola was working on the copper plates at the time of his death. Danti further illustrated the text with woodcuts. This combination of woodcut and copper-engraved illustrations was maintained in the following Rome editions -- of 1611 and 1644 -- but abandoned in the Bologna edition of 1682, which contains only woodcuts. The clarity and ease of use of Vignola's treatise caused it to become popular in succeeding centuries the most published book in architectural history. An important landmark of Renaissance architectural theory and illustration. An increasingly scarce work. Cicognara 810; Fowler 386; Riccardi, 88.