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Important edition of the original architectural classic by Vignola with the addition of seven designs by Michelangelo

VIGNOLA, Giacomo Barozzi da.
Regola delli Cinque Ordini d'Architettura.

Engraved title-page with portrait of Vignola ([I]), engraved plate with dedication dated 18 August 1635 (II) , 35 etched and engraved full-page plates numbered III-XXXVII, second engraved title with a portrait of Michelangelo Buonaroti ([XXXVIII]), and 7 plates numbered XXXVIIII-XXXXV, most of them by Bernardino Oppi after the original designs by Vignola.

Siena, Pietro Marchetti, (after 1635, probably ca. 1650-60). 2 parts in one. Folio. Later half calf, gilt title on spine, original vellum covers pasted on insides of the modern cloth covers. Engraved title-page with portrait of Vignola ([I]), engraved plate with dedication dated 18 August 1635 (II) , 35 etched and engraved full-page plates numbered III-XXXVII, second engraved title with a portrait of Michelangelo Buonaroti ([XXXVIII]), and 7 plates numbered XXXVIIII-XXXXV, most of them by Bernardino Oppi after the original designs by Vignola.

Re-edition of the Sienese edition by Bernardino Oppi from 1635 (BAL 3451) of this famous Italian architectonic work by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507-1573), published also in Siena by Pietro Marchetti.
Vignola may have begun work on his treatise during the 1550s, when his career and patronage were both going from strength to strength. The first clear evidence of the book's composition is from August 1561. The work appears, however, not to have been completed and issued in Rome until the summer of 1562 containing 32 plates. In later editions published during his lifetime, Vignola has added the plates XXXIII-XXXVII. Vignola's Regola was immediately accepted as the most reliable short guide to the proportions and formal vocabulary of the Orders, and became required reading in academies and schools throughout the world. Its great innovation was to reduce the five orders to their fundamentals, and to present these with modular measurements, unencumbered by philosophical ot theoretical asides. The book was intended to be understood by anyone with basic mathematical training, and thus had the immediate practical appeal which the treatises of Serlio and Vitruvius could not hope to attain. The elegance, lucidity and brevity of the Regola helped to make it a best-seller for three centuries and by the time of Vigniola's death in 1573 it was well on its way to becoming the 'Bible' of the Orders, and its author the 'law-giver' of Classical architecture (BAL, Tuttle).
The history of Vignola's work subsequent to his death is one of almost limitless re-interpretation, revision, reduction and expansion. The original images formed not only the core of a series of straightforward copies of the work (as the present edition), but also of a growing plexus of new works which added the description, philosophy and examples, which Vignola had gone to such pains to expunge from his work. Some editions of Vignola owe much more to their editors or translators than to the intellect of their originator.
Our copy, however, belongs to one of the many re-editions of the original work. It is a re-print of the edition that had been published in Siena in 1635 by Bernardino Oppi. This edition consists of 45 engraved and etched plates (numbered [I], II-XXXVII, [XXXVIII], XXXVIIII-XXXXV), probably engraved by Oppi. They are reversed copies of the title-plate and plates of the 1607 edition and the 1610 supplement (BAL 3447 and 3450), that is of the original Series A-plates, as published by Andreas Vaccarius in Rome in 1607 (pl. II-XXXVII), with the supplement published in 1610 (pl. XXXVIII-XXXXV), and are Fowler's 'Type E' (see Fowler 351A). The first 37 plates are after the original designs by Vignola, the title for the 7 additional plates of works by Michelangelo had been designed by G.B. Montano (pl. [XXXVIII]) and the 7 plates by Giovanni Orlandi (?).
Our edition with a later state of the same plates, was published after Oppi's death ca. 1650-60. The date '1635?' as is sometimes found, is based on the fact that this date is retained on the dedication plate.
The title-plate shows a portrait of Vignola in a Corinthian-style architectural frame surmounted by putti supporting the arms of the Farnese family. From the coffered ceiling above hang polyhedral figures, while the voluted pediment bears two emblems of the Farnese family (see also pl. XXXII-XXXVII with details of the Palazzo Farnese). Underneath the imprint of Marchetti is added. The work is dedicated to Volunio Bandinelli, signed and dated by Bernardino Oppi, Sienna 18 August 1635; on the same plate follows an 'A Lettori' in three paragraphs (pl. II). After the plates III-XXXVII follows the supplement (part 2): first the title-plate, originally drawn by G.B. Montano: Nuova et ultima aggiunta delle porte d'architettura di Michel Angelo Buonaroti ..., lettered on the face of an altar, with a portrait of Michel Angelo on the reredos; to either side are columns with decorated capitals and personifications of theory and practise, with the imprint "Pietro Marchetti' underneath (pl. [XXXVIII]); then the 7 additional plates of gates designed by Michel Angelo and a monumental doorway 'in Campidiglio ... d'inventione de Michel Angelo' (pl. XXXVIIII-XXXXV).

Fine copy, with a contemporary ownership's entry on the verso of the last plate of Andrea Coletti from Venice, probably the one who added several annotations and measurements on a few plates.- (First title somewhat thumbed, some insign. soiling and spotting throughout; some tears skilfully repaired, top-right corner of pl. XXXXI gone, slightly affecting the plate).

BAL 3451, note; cf. also 3447 and 3450; Fowler 360; Berlin Kat. 2585; Cicognara 417; Casotti, 'G.B. da Vignola: Regola ...', in: E. Bassi (ed.), Pietro Cataneo, G.B. da Vignola; trattati (1985), 35; R.J. Tuttle, in: Paper palaces, p. 200ff.

Related Subjects: 16th Century 17th Century Architecture Italy Perspective

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