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Architecture ou art de bien bastir

Illustrated by: Jean Goujon (French, about 1510–about 1565)
Author: Vitruvius Pollio
Translator: Jean Martin (French, died about 1553)
Publisher: Jacques Gazeau (French, died in 1548)
Publisher: Jean Barbé (French, 16th century)
1547
Place of Publication: Paris, France

Medium/Technique Illustrated book with 150 woodcuts
Dimensions Overall: 36.9 x 25.5 x 6 cm (14 1/2 x 10 1/16 x 2 3/8 in.)
Credit Line George Nixon Black Fund
Accession Number34.857.2
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsIllustrated books
Paris: for Jacques Gazeau, B. Hérissault Barbé, and heirs of Jean Barbé, 1547

Catalogue Raisonné Brunet V, 1329; Fowler 403; Mortimer, French, 549
Description(Paris: for Jacques Gazeau, B. Hérissault Barbé, and heirs of Jean Barbé, 1547) Folio; 184 leaves; old blind- and gilt-stamped yellow-green suede, red leather label.

Illustrations of architectural views, details, sections, etc. First edition of the first complete French translation (by Jean Martin). Printed for the widow and heirs of Jean Barbé, who had died in this year before finishing the project; he had printed the 1545 Serlio (cf. 34.857.1). Mortimer discusses the portrait on the title (and colophon) as having been interpreted as Vitruvius, Jean Martin (the translator), Jean Goujon, or the printer Jean Barbé. See Du Colombier for a complete chart of the illustrations. A few are copied from earlier editions of Vitruvius (Venice: 1511, and Como: 1521), and four blocks were used previously in the 1545 Serlio to which this volume is bound. The MFA owns the second edition of Martin's translation, with many of the same woodcuts, printed in Paris in 1572 (1979.648).

BOUND with Serlio, Primo libro, 1545 (34.857.1)
ProvenanceE.P. Goldschmidt & Co., London, from whom purchased by MFA, October 4, 1934.