ars libri ltd.
rare and scholarly books
on the fine arts
ars libri ltd.
rare and scholarly books
on the fine arts
Early Art Literature Exhibited at the International Fine Art Fair
41
Temanza, Tommaso.
Vita di JACOPO SANSOVINO fiorentino, scultore et architetto. (10), 59, (1)pp. Engraved portrait hors texte by Pietro Monaco after Titian. 1 engraved medallic illus. Fine woodcut title-page vignette and lettrines. 4to. Fine contemporary flexible speckled boards. First edition. The work is the first in a series of monographs on Italian architects by Temanza, followed by lives of Palladio in 1762 and Scamozzi in 1770. A very handsome copy in entirely original state.
Venezia (Giacomo Storti), 1752. $1,200.00
Schlosser p. 560; Fowler 343
42
SAVARY [CLAUDE ÉTIENNE].
Letters on Egypt. Containing, a parallel between the manners of its ancient and modern inhabitants, its commerce, agriculture, government and religion; with the descent of Louis IX at Damietta. Extracted from Joinville, and Arabian authors. Translated from the French. Second edition. 2 vols. xi, (1), 467, (1), (2), 490, (14)pp., 4 folding engraved plates, including 3 maps and 1 a “Plan of the Inside of the Great Pyramid.” Contemporary calf. Raised bands. Second English-language edition, following the first and second editions in French and English, 1785-1786. “[Savary’s] description of Egypt, together with Volney’s account, became the manual for scholarly travellers to the country. Savary’s work is particularly interesting because, as Carré says, he was the first Frenchman to cite Arab texts” (Blackmer). Tears at folds of plates. A handsome set.
London (G.G.J. and J. Robinson), 1787. $800.00
Cf. Blackmer 1492 ; Hilmy II.314
43
SILVESTRE, ISRAEL.
. Untitled suite of monuments and views of Rome, Venice, Siena and elsewhere (Faucheux 1.5). 12 through-numbered etched plates on buff-colored watermarked paper. Image size, to platemarks: ca. 115 x 195 mm. (4 1/2 x 7 3/4 inches). Sheet size: 210 x 286 mm. (8 1/4 x 11 inches). First state (of two). The subjects of the plates are: St. Peter’s, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Arch of Portugal, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, "Palais de la Vigne du Cardinal Pie, proche le Colisée," Piazza Navona, the Rialto in Venice ("inventé par Michel Ange"), the approach to Venice from the lagoon, SS. Trinità in Gaeta, S. Maria di Loreto, S. Maria degli Angioli in Porziuncola, and S. Domenico in Siena. "Très jolie suite sans titre.... Il y a une grande ressemblance entre cette suite et la suite du numéro précédent ["Vues de Rome et de Venise," Faucheux I.4]; on les a quelquefois mélées, et on les trouve dans le commerce, complétées l’une par l’autre" (Faucheux). Some of the suite has been mounted with small stubs at left, where on ce hinged into a binding, and the whole series expertly washed.
Paris (Chez Pierre Mariette, rue S. Jacques à l’Esperance), n.d. $2,000.00
44
SONNINI, C.S. [CHARLES NICHOLAS SIGISBERT].
Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, Undertaken by Order of the Old Government of France. Illustrated by engravings, consisting of portraits, views, plans, antiquities, plants, animals, &c., drawn on the spot, under the author’s inspection. To which is subjoined a map of the country. Translated from the French. (2), xl, 730, 14pp., 28 engraved plates with numerous figs. (including folding map). Lrg. stout 4to. Contemporary calf (handsomely rebacked). Second edition in English, following on the three-volume octavo edition published in 1799, and here with plates reduced from the first French edition, Paris 1799. “Sonnini embarked for Alexandria in 1777 with Tott’s mission. There he received orders from Louis XVI to explore Egypt. He spent three years traveling through the country, as far as Aswan. He then went on to Greece and Turkey, returning to France in 1780.... His work on Egypt is full of important information: ‘un réel intérêt par l’ampleur, la variété et la précision de ses informations,’ ‘son ouvrage e st plus complet que celui de Volney et de Savary’ (--Carré)” (Blackmer). A little browned, small marginal, stain at head of plates.
London (J. Debrett), 1800. $1,200.00
Blackmer 1573; Hilmy II.245
45
TALLARD COLLECTION) REMY [P.] & GLOMY [J.-B.].
Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, sculptures, tant de marbre que de bronze, desseins et estampes des plus grands maîtres, porcelaines anciennes, meubles précieux, bijoux, et autres effets qui composent le cabinet de feu Monsieur le duc de Tallard. x, 273, (3), 8, 4pp. Handsome frontispiece etching by Huquier after Baudouin, of connoisseurs at a table; 1 hors-texte etching of a porphyry vase on a pedestal. Contemporary mottled calf gilt A very important sale. “The dearest piece of furniture sold in Paris during the decade of Lazare Duvaux does not figure in his accounts. The Duc de Tallard’s lustre, composed of 160 pieces of imported crystal, was auctioned in 1756 for no less than £640” (Reitlinger). This copy is discreetly priced in pen throughout. Neat mend in a blank section of the title.
Paris (Didot), 1756. $600.00
Lugt 910; Duplessis 312; Reitlinger Objets d’Art p. 27
46
Zanotti, Giampietro.
. Le pitture di PELLEGRINO TIBALDI e di NICCOLO ABATI esistensi nell’Instituto di Bologna. (4), 45, (1)pp., allegorical frontispiece by Bartolommeo Crivellari, dedication portrait of Pope Benedict XIIII and portrait of Pellegrino Tibaldi (both by Wagner), 41 plates by Crivellari and Giovanni Battista Brustolon (4). 13 culs-de-lampe and ornaments, engraved by Crivellari and Brustolon (3). Engraved lettrines (1 signed Brustolon). Folio. Nineteenth-century marbled boards, 1/4 cloth. Tibaldi’s allegorical fresco decorations in the Palazzo Poggi in Bologna (now the Instituto delle Scienze at the University of Bologna) were executed circa 1555 at the behest of Cardinal Giovanni Poggi. Niccolò dell’Abbate’s frieze decorations are slightly earlier, circa 1550. Both cycles are among the artists’ greatest works. Occasional light foxing and wear.
Venezia, 1756. $4,000.00
Freitag 10391; Riggs p. 653
47
TORIJA, JUAN DE.
Breve tratado de todo genero de bobedas asi regulares como yrregulares execucion de obrarlas y medirlas con singularidad y modo moderno observando los preceptos canteriles de los maestros de architectura. Por Juan de Torixa maestro architecto yaparexador de las obras reales. Fully engraved dec. title, signed Marcus de Orozco, with putti supporting cartouche of text within scrolls and architectural frame; (8), (78)ff. (misnumbered). 27 engraved plates (measured diagrams) in text. Woodcut lettrines, culs-de-lampe. Tall 4to. Modern mottled calf with raised bands, gilt at spine. A double treatise, each part of ten chapters, on proportion in vaulting, by this ‘Arquitecto Mayor’ of Madrid. The work concludes with a long note on the “Autores en mis estudios he seguido y reconcido sus grandes aciertos,” among them Vitruvius, Alberti, Palladio, Philibert Delorme, Serlio, Rubens, Domenico Fontana and Scamozzi. The engraver of the strikingly handsome title-page, Orozco, was a prolific designer of devotional prints. We quote at length from the article on Torija by Javier Rivera in The Dictionary of Art: “In 1652-3 [Torija] was the principal architectural assistant for the royal works in Madrid, where he worked on the Alcázar de los Austrias and on the reconstruction of the Palacio del Buen Retiro.... In 1662 he reconstructed the main chapel of Atocha in Madrid, following the design of Sebastián de Herrera Barnuevo. He also participated in the reports on the construction of the sacristy of the Seville Cathedral. His greatest prestige came from his authorship of two books, ‘Tratado breve sobre las ordenanzas de la villa de Madrid y polizia della’ and ‘Breve tratado de todo genero de bobedas...’ (both Madrid, 1661). The first deals with municipal practices previously promulgated and defends the professional capabilities and competence of masters of the works, masons and bricklayers; it was extremely influential, reprinted several times, and used by the royal architect Teodoro Ardemans as the basis of his book on the same theme (Madrid, 1719). The second book, a treatise on vaulting, was polemical, as both San Nicolás (1639) and Ceán Bermudez...stated that its real author had been Torija’s father-in-law, the Madrid architect Pedro de la Peña (d. 1650), who in turn had plagiarized it from a manuscript version by Andrés de Vandelvira; Torija’s study, however, uses different and simpler mathematical calculations, and its practical nature places it much more in the sphere of bricklaying than in that of masonry or stereotomy, offering a broad range of solutions for building and shuttering of all types of vaults. The same book announced the publication of another text, the ‘Libro de trazas de cortes de cantería,’ which was not published because of Torija’s premature death.” Expertly restored, with skillful renewal of right edge and portions of the foot of the title-page, and a small portion of the foot of the first leaf (dedication), including one and a half words supplied in expert pen facsimile. An exceptionally handsome copy of this very rare book.
Madrid (Pablo de Val), 1661. $8,500.00
Berlin 2764; Bonet Correa 647; Palau XXIII.293; Zamora y Lucas 67; Ramón Gutiérrez, “Bibliografia Hispanoamericana de Arquitectura” p. 74; El Libri de Arte en España p. 56
48
VASARI, GIORGIO.
. Ragionamenti.... sopra le invenzioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel palazzo di loro altezze serenissime, con illustriss. ed eccellentiss. signore D. Francesco Medici allora principe di Firenze. Insieme con la invenzione della pittura da lui cominciata nella cupola. Seconda edizione. x, 174pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait and title-page vignette; wood-engraved culs-de-lampe, lettrines. 4to. Early pastepaper wraps. The first edition was published in Florence in 1588. As is noted by both Cicognara and Schlosser, this is in fact a third issue of the work, a reprint of the original having appeared in Florence in 1619 under the title “Trattato della pittura.” “The ‘Ragionamenti,’ his explanation of the paintings in the Palazzo Vecchio, was published posthumously by his nephew, Giorgio Vasari il giovane, in 1588 from a non-autograph manuscript. This text was known in Vasari’s lifetime, however, and is mentioned several times in the ‘Vite.’ It is the first of a series of similar descriptions of complex palazzo decorations published by artists or their advisors in the last quarter of the 16th century” (Julian Kliemann, in The Dictionary of Art). A little light wear.
Arezzo (Michele Bellotti), 1762. $1,200.00
Schlosser p. 345; Cicognara 227; cf. Gamba 1729
49
VASARI, GIORGIO.
. Trattato della pittura. Nel quale si contiene, la prattica di essa, divisato in tre giornate. Et ridotto in ragionamenti, ne’ quali si spiegan le invenzioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel palazzo di loro Altezze Serenissime. (8), 186, (18)pp. Woodcut title vignette, frontispiece portrait, culs-de-lampe, lettrines. 4to. Contemporary limp vellum (part of backstrip unobtrusively renewed in vellum). A reprint of the posthumous dialogues published by Vasari’s nephew as “Il Ragionamenti” in 1588; Schlosser suggests that here the title has been changed to mislead, for commercial reasons. The self-portrait medallion is taken from 1568 second edition of the “Vite” (also from Giunta), as is its mannerist tabernacle frame, although the frame originally accompanied a different portrait. The focus of Vasari’s text is a discussion of the paintings in the Palazzo Vecchio, “which occupied a large part of his creative energy from 1555 to 1572. It was the most extensive palace decoration executed to a coherent programme in 16th-century Italy and the prototype for the residence of an absolute ruler.... The programmes, devised with Bartoli and Borghini, were so complex that by 1558 Vasari decided to produce a written explanation of the decoration, the ‘Ragionamenti’” (Antonio Manno, in the Grove Dictionary of Art). A little wormholing in endpapers and flyleaves (very slightly affecting title), a little browning and marginal staining, a few contemporary annotations. Rare.
Firenze (I Giunti), 1619. $3,500.00
Schlosser p. 345; Cicognara 226; Brunet V.1097; Graesse VII.264
50
VITRUVIUS.
De architectura libri decem. Ad Augustum Cæsarem, accuratiss. conscripti: & nunc primum in Germania qua potuit diligentia excusi, atq; hinc inde schematibus non iniucundis exornati. A diecimus etiam propter agrumenti conformitatem, Sexti Iulii Frontini De aquæductibus urbis Romæ, libellum. Item ex libro Nicolai Cusani card. De staticis experimentis, fragmentum. Cum indice ciouisussunim & dispositione longe meliori, quàm antea. (52), 262, (50)pp. 129 woodcut illus. Sm. 4to. Contemporary limp vellum. “This is the first edition of Vitruvius printed in Germany, with the plates based on those of the Como 1521 edition. The text is printed in italics with chapter headings and capitals in roman type” (Fowler). The volume contains, in addition, reports by Nicolas of Cusa of botanical experiments. Portions somewhat browned; early Jesuit library stamp on title; early annotation in Greek on the rear flyleaf; a pleasant copy.
Argentorati [Strassburg] (In Officina Knoblochiana per Georgium Machæropioeum), 1543. $5,000.00
Borroni II.2.7; Berlin 1806;
Fowler 401; Cicognara 707; Riccardi I.613; Poleni p. 43; Graesse
VI.37; Adams V-906; Ritter 2424
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